After watching my two lovely children tumble all over the place for the past few years, including falling down stairs, tumbling off bikes, splatting off rollerblades and wiping out on playgrounds, I’ve come to a few conclusions as to why children don’t hurt themselves as often as adults. If an adult fell the same number of times as a child, most adults would be in permanent traction, and Ontario’s health care system would be under far greater strain than it is.

So, the reasons why children don’t hurt themselves when they fall are:
1. They wear diapers. More padding.
2. The average child’s head is only 3 feet off the ground. The average adult’s head is somewhere around 6 feet off the ground. I don’t know all the math, but the impact of an adult’s head hitting concrete is far greater than that of a child’s head, since the adult has been falling (read accelarating) as long.
3. Children’s guardian angels are much more alert than those of adults.

Not a very scientific answer, but close enough for my purposes.

cheers
mike