At my DDs 10U team practice yesterday. During the base running portion of the practice as the girls were going from 3rd to home the coach was telling them to slide head first into home. I thought this was really odd 1) at no time during the practice were they instructed on how to correctly slide head first 2) half the team just moved up from 8U so they are just learning how to correctly slide FEET FIRST let alone head first 3) Sliding head first into home with the catcher armored up IMHO is too much risk with too little reward.
My older daughter has been playing year round travel for the past 4 years and is now in 14U. During that time I have only seen one girl go into home head first and that was when she tried to knock the ball loose from our catcher. Predictably the runner was the one that ended up hurt (and out).
But I would like to get people's thoughts.