It's important to pick one for your kid that is comfortable and fits correctly.
. “A poor fit will impact the protection a helmet can provide,” says Angela K. Lumba-Brown, a pediatric emergency medicine physician at Stanford Health Care in California and an expert on brain injury. “It can also make a helmet uncomfortable and therefore less likely to be used.”
The best way to find the right size is to take your child into a bike shop and have them try on helmets with a sales associate who’s familiar with the options, says Brad Bowman, product manager at Gregg’s Cycle, a chain of three bike shops in Washington state. If you choose to buy online, Lumba-Brown suggests measuring your child’s head with flexible measuring tape about an inch above the eyebrows before choosing a size.
Once a sales associate helps you identify the right-sized helmet, adjust the dial until the helmet feels tight but isn’t causing the child discomfort. “After you dial in the fit, if you pull up lightly on top of the helmet, it shouldn’t come off their head,” Bowman says. To further test fit, Lumba-Brown recommends having the child gently shake their head back and forth to determine whether it falls off without the chin strap in place.
Next, secure the chin strap. While the strap should be snug, you should be able to fit a few fingers between the child’s chin and the strap, Bowman says. Keep in mind that the chin strap’s function isn’t to keep the helmet on your child’s head while they ride, but to keep the helmet on if they happen to fall.Most helmets come equipped with a hard outer shell and shock-absorbing foam on the inside.
If you have younger, squirmy kids, ease of adjustability is critical. The dial on the back of the helmet should be large enough to grab and easily turn.
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