There's a lot of activities that the AAP recommends against and we did almost every one of them as a kid. I'm eternally grateful to my parents that I enjoyed an amazing childhood full of trampolines, dangerously unstable and high tree forts, homemade fireworks, driveway skateramps, pocketknives (and plenty of sliced fingers), and all of the other cool shit that parents don't let their kids do anymore.

The only blade-related injury I have ever seen was actually caused by a hatchet, while splitting small-diameter firewood for a campfire. Some topical antibiotic ointment and butterfly bandages took care of it for the four days it took us to reach the pick-up point. She didn't have permission to use the hatchet unsupervised, and was not following the family-approved safe-use technique. Needless to say, she was not allowed to do anything fun for the rest of the trip.

It made a nice scar, though. People can ask her how she got it, and she can say, "oh, that's from a hatchet, a four day journey away from the nearest hospital." My most interesting scar is from the underside of the dashboard on a Honda Civic while installing an aftermarket stereo, and you can barely even see it.

I have never seen a pocketknife injury, though. Nor any from archery equipment, or firearms. I'd probably be most worried about barbed treble-fishhooks and swimming in warm freshwater lakes and rivers. Not really because of drowning, so much as slips and falls from mud or algae-coated rocks, or infectious parasites in the water.

My spouse, on the other hand, never got to do anything fun as a kid, and freaks out about everything even remotely dangerous, like my sharp, pointy tweezers. The only people more unreasonably intolerant of minute risks work for the TSA.

Trampolines, though. Those things are deathtraps. I'd rather have a swimming pool drained of water and refilled with rattlesnakes in my back yard. Also, no [American] football.

The American Academy of Pediatrics says a lot of things based on pseudo-science and speculation. Basically, they fail to ever do any cost-benefit analysis. They recommend against doing anything that involves risk, without offsetting the risk against the potential benefits of engaging in the activity.

"In children younger than 14 years, rates of swimming injuries were similar to those for trampoline".

"Injury rates attributable to bicycling and use of playground equipment were higher [than trampoline injury rates in comparable age groups]"

Sounds a bit overblown.

The picture of Mike's backyard shows that the trampoline is mounted in the ground and has the springs very well covered. This is a thoughtful design.