Three children in my son’s grade 4 have broken their arm over the past four months. I’ve never seen so many breaks in such a short time. Yesterday, my son broke his, making that four. Three of the children had surgery, but my son didn’t. Why is that?

Broken arms are quite common among children. Statistics show that between 10 to 25 percent of children break at least one bone and, most often, it’s in the upper extremity, meaning the arm, the hand, and so on.

Whether surgery is done depends on many factors, including the severity of the break, where the break is, the history of success that the break has with healing on its own, any other damage in the arm to the surrounding tissue, and the doctor’s experience and preference.

While it may seem that two people have the same type of arm fracture, inside, there could be a significant difference. This difference would require a different approach.