Your kid is past the worst of the concussion. The headaches are gone, school is back to normal, and the next training session is on Tuesday. The coach has texted asking when they will be back. The kid wants to know the same thing.
Here is the only honest answer: not yet, and there is a defined protocol for when.
Football Australia tightened its concussion guidance in April 2025. The framework borrows from the international consensus statement on concussion in sport and the Australian Institute of Sport position statement. It is six steps, 24 hours symptom-free between each, and a minimum of 11 days from injury to contact training for under-19s. None of it is negotiable, and none of it should be.
This article walks the six steps in plain language, names the two points where parents tend to get it wrong, and tells you when the GP has to sign off.
What return-to-play is not
It is not a clearance from the coach. It is not the kid saying they feel fine. It is not the absence of obvious symptoms during a normal day at home. The brain takes longer to clear than the symptoms do, which is why every framework worldwide is built around graduated load and a minimum number of days, not just symptom resolution.
It is also not the same protocol an elite adult player follows. Adolescents recover more slowly than adults. The minimum 11 days is a floor for under-19s. Most kids take longer.
The six-step Graduated Return to Sport framework
Each step requires 24 hours symptom-free before progressing. Symptom recurrence at any step means dropping back to the previous step and waiting 24 hours symptom-free again. The first three steps can begin during the rest and return-to-learn period if the kid tolerates them. Steps 4, 5, and 6 only begin after a successful return to a full school week.
Step 1. Symptom-limited activity. Light walking, daily activities at home. The goal is to introduce gentle activity without provoking symptoms.
Step 2. Light aerobic exercise. Stationary bike, walking briskly, light jogging. Heart rate elevated but well below maximum. No resistance training. No team environment.
Step 3. Sport-specific exercise. Solo running drills, change of direction at low intensity, ball-handling without contact. No heading, no contact, no team training. Done individually.
Step 4. Non-contact training drills. Joining team training but only for non-contact drills. Passing, positional play, light ball work in a group. Still no heading. Still no contact, no tackles, no aerial duels.
Step 5. Full contact practice. Full team training including contact drills. This is the first step that requires medical clearance. The GP signs off before step 5 begins. The coach does not. The league does not. The GP.
Step 6. Return to play. Match play. The kid is back in the game.
The minimum from injury to step 5 (contact training) is 11 days for under-19s under the current Football Australia guidance. The minimum to step 6 is therefore 12 days. Most kids will take longer because each step needs 24 hours symptom-free, and any setback resets that step's clock.
The two places parents go wrong
Place one: skipping the GP sign-off before step 5. This is the most common shortcut. The kid is symptom-free at step 4, training feels fine, the coach asks if they can do contact drills on Saturday, and the parent shrugs. The protocol exists because returning to contact while the brain is still recovering raises the risk of a second concussion that is far worse than the first. Second-impact syndrome in children, while rare, can be fatal. The GP visit is a 15-minute appointment. There is no reason to skip it.
Place two: assuming "no symptoms" means "fully recovered". Symptoms can return during exertion that they did not show at rest. That is exactly what step 2 onwards is testing for. The kid who reports a headache after the first 10 minutes of step 3 has not failed; they have given the protocol the information it was designed to surface. Drop back a step, wait, try again.
A note on heading
Football Australia's guidance is that heading should be avoided in the early return-to-training stages. Heading is a repeated low-level head impact. Reintroducing it during recovery is exactly the wrong load on a brain that is just back to baseline. The current FA protocol keeps heading out until the later steps and only with caution.
A note on helmets and mouthguards
They do not prevent concussion. Helmets reduce skull fractures and lacerations. Mouthguards reduce dental injury. Concussion is caused by the brain moving inside the skull, not by the skull striking something hard. No helmet stops that. Parents who buy a soft headband expecting it to prevent concussion have been sold a comfort product, not a safety product. The AIS is unambiguous on this.
When to push back on the coach
If a coach pressures your kid to return before the protocol is complete, the answer is no, and the answer is the same whether it is grand final week or round three. A coach who understands junior welfare will not ask. A coach who does ask is the conversation to have with your club committee, then your state body if the club does not handle it. Sport Integrity Australia provides the framework for that escalation.
Why this is written this slowly
Because the consequences of getting this wrong are bigger than the consequences of waiting an extra week. There is no premiership at U10. There is no scout watching at U12. There is the brain your kid will use for the next 70 years.
If you want the rest of the cluster, the sideline first five minutes and first 24 hours cover the upstream events, return-to-learn covers the school side, and the first week piece covers the days right after the injury. The library treats the whole concussion arc as one connected conversation, because that is how it actually plays out at home.