Your daughter’s teammate broke her leg in a soccer game on Saturday. The crack was audible. Her mom screamed. The ambulance came. Your daughter watched all of it from the field.

The next week, your daughter is quiet. She doesn’t want to go to practice. She has bad dreams. She can’t articulate what’s wrong.

This is normal. Here is what to do.

Name what happened

Don’t pretend the game was just another game. Sit down with her on Sunday or Monday. That was scary on Saturday. What you saw is hard to see. How are you doing with it?

Use the actual words. Scary. Hard. Saw. The avoidance is what makes the memory loop. The naming is what gives her permission to feel.

Listen for what scared her

It’s usually one of three things.

The injury itself. The crack of the bone. The visual of the leg.

The parent’s reaction. Watching another mom lose composure is more frightening for kids than the injury sometimes. Adults are supposed to be in control. The mom screaming was the adult losing control.

The fear that it could be her. That could have been me on the field. This is the most common one and the one kids are least likely to articulate.

Ask gentle questions. What part keeps coming back? Listen for the answer.

What not to say

She’s going to be fine. You don’t know that. The teammate may have a long recovery. Don’t make promises about other kids’ bodies.

That’s why we wear shin guards. Don’t bring up safety equipment in this moment. It sounds like a lecture and shifts focus from her feelings to your prevention plan.

You’re so brave. She doesn’t feel brave. The compliment doesn’t land.

What to say

That’s a lot to process. We can talk about it as much or as little as you want. I’m here whenever.

Then be there. Don’t bring it up every day. Don’t avoid it. If she brings it up at dinner Tuesday, listen. If she doesn’t bring it up, don’t push.

What to do about practice

The first practice back is the hard one. Tell her ahead of time. Tuesday will probably feel weird. The team will be different without Maya. That’s okay. We’ll see how it goes.

Don’t promise she has to stay the whole practice. If you need to leave halfway through, we can. This is not coddling. This is reducing the threshold to going at all. Most kids who go with the option to leave early end up staying.

If she refuses to go to practice, that’s data. Don’t force it. Skip Tuesday. Try Thursday. Most kids return on their own timeline within two weeks.

Reaching out to the teammate

If she has a relationship with the injured teammate, encourage her to reach out. A text. A drawing. A short visit at home if that’s appropriate.

The act of caring for the injured friend is part of how she processes her own fear. It’s not a fix, but it shifts her from witness to participant.

If she doesn’t have that relationship, don’t manufacture one. The point is not to perform care. The point is to feel her own response.

When the response is more than a week

Most kids settle within seven to ten days. If she is still anxious about practice in week three, still having bad dreams, still unable to talk about it, that’s a different conversation.

Talk to your pediatrician. Ask whether a session or two with a child therapist would help. Some injuries leave a small mental wake. A trained adult can help her work through it in a way you cannot, and that’s not a failure on your part.

The quiet adjustment

Sometimes the response is not anxiety. Sometimes she just plays a little less aggressively for a few weeks. Pulls up on a tackle she would have made before. Hesitates on a fifty-fifty ball.

This is fine. It will adjust over time. Don’t tell her to play harder. The hesitation is her body telling her she saw something hard, and her caution is part of how she heals.

By midseason, the hesitation will fade. Don’t rush it.

The longer arc

Kids who have seen a teammate hurt remember it. They remember the crack, the scream, the ambulance. They process the memory differently as they age. By fourteen, the memory will have less power. By eighteen, it may even be a story she tells about her childhood.

What lasts is the version of you who sat with her. The parent who didn’t avoid the conversation, didn’t rush the recovery, didn’t make her be brave on a schedule.

That parent is the one she calls at twenty-two when something hard happens at college.

The work you do now is invisible. The work you do now is the work.