I really struggle with girls matches and the "cover the chest with the arms" bit. I'm sure a hard shot to female chest is painful, but it is not an area where serious injury can result - such as the face. The other problem I have with it is the vast difference in effect on the ball. Path of the ball hitting hands vs. face is not much different. Path of the ball hitting elbows/arms vs chest is entirely different.
Speaking of protecting one's face: Interestingly, I had two of those raise the hand to protect the face in a JV game last week. The losing team had one, but I thought the ball was over her head, so I called it. A few minutes later the same team had a free kick, and one of the winning team's players put up her hand in front of her face to block the ball. She was about 8 yards off the ball, and to be fair, I thought she needed the call too. "I was protecting my face." I thought, "I just called one on the other team, get back 10 yards next time, and you are up 5-0, deal with it." I just said, "Sorry."
Back to OP, Why DOGSO Red? Kid was making play for the ball in defending PA. Under new DOGSO rules it would only be a YC anyway.
It wasn't red and no one suggested it would be red. (But your reasoning wouldn't hold up in a world where heading could support discipline--your reasoning would make DOGSO-H a caution because the player was playing the ball (illegally with his hand) just as the OP was playing the ball (illegally with his head. No need to overthink this: no heading is a safety rule, not an offense, and has nothing to do with DOGSO.)
I have lots of experience with this one. Parent, coach, referee, and referee parent of two. Where I am I believe it is well aligned with AYSO national, so never a caution. Also, always to be punished, safety, correct always and immediately, ok, fine. So the older child was the last birth year to always be allowed to head, so that is the reason for the BRAIN DAMAGE! We had to call back an unintentional header in the PA that landed at the feet of the attacker and was buried. Tell the kid not to head it and his reaction is "so I stopped the goal?" The younger played and had heading taken away, after learning to take easy controlling headers. Smart and safe, not the huge flighted ball, think head to ball more than ball to head. The next year it was taken away, and punished several times. Not a happy kid, eventually takes the referee training. All headers shall shall result in a stoppage. Advantage does not apply, never carded. "So if a ball in the air is going to the goal and I am not GK, I should head it not handle it right." I don't want you to get hurt... so uh, no.
That's what I see, a lot of high kicks where IMO it would be a much safer situation to be able to head the ball.
I wish they'd modify this rule. There are many deliberate plays of the ball with the head that have no/a remote chance of causing a concussion. For instance, there is little danger for a concussion in heading a bouncing ball or a thrown ball. These rules should be rewritten so that it is only illegal to head a ball that was played directly with the foot and has not made contact with the ground before making contact with the head.
Part of the PDI is not practicing heading to avoid the repeated contacts at a young and more vulnerable age. If we aren't going to let the players practice the activity, it doesn't make a lot of sense to let them do it games. Additionally, the danger isn't just ball-head; not heading also reduces head-head collisions--which can still occur on a ball that has bounced (and may even be more likely at younger ages when the ball that has bounced is less scary and kids are more likely to go after it). While I'm sympathetic about those situations where the heading is safe, I think it is unrealistic to try to make rules (and have newbie refs enforce them) that really draw the distinction. I think it has to be allowed (and practice allowed) or disallowed. Why was play stopped if it wasn't intentional? If it wasn't intentional, it wasn't a header, it was just a ball bouncing off a player and play should have continued (unless the R thought it was hard and immediately stopped play to check on the player).
Unless you're in Virginia where play is stopped EVERYTIME the ball hits a head. The restart is an IDFK if it was deliberate or a dropped ball if it wasn't. Sigh.
. Because as it stands, it is a feel-good rule that is stunting youth development and doing little to stop concussions. It’s like dropping the legal limit to .05. Makes you look tough on drunks, but does little to actually stop any. Keeping kids from properly and safely heading a ball that has no concussion risk is asinine. It’s prohibited in practice because US Soccer has no faith in the common sense of youth coaches; not because it is causing concussions.
And because there was a lawsuit . . . The extent to which heading does or doesn't contribute to concussions (immediately or with greater susceptibility later) or to CTW is, as best I can tell, medically unresolved. Whether or not it is stunting development or not is another open question. I'm not sure how much 10 year olds really learned to head effectively anyway--we won't now if 18 year olds are worse headers because of this until this flight of players get older. (I don't see it worse in current 14Us that I've watched.) But what I do notice is that young players are getting much better at using their bodies, as they actually try to control the ball with chest or thigh, rather than just heading for the sake of heading (which with young players was rarely controlled and often just letting the ball hit the head instead of actually heading the ball). I definitely think it is a good rule at 8U. And I think it is good rule at 10U. I'm less enthusiastic once we get to 12U (which in many places carries the limitation because 10 year olds can be in the pool). YMMV.
Ours is anything BELOW 12U. I coached my kids from K to current U15 and I never allowed them to practice heading the ball for two reasons; 1) I saw more value in learning to control the ball with your body and feet, because they're just not coordinated enough to use their heads in any meaningful way and 2) MOST importantly, their actual skulls are still pretty soft when they're that little. For me, it was a safety issue, I've seen a lot of kids (before age heading cessation rules) both going for a ball with their heads and clattering through each other for no reason. It's U littles, it's not worth the risk. Even though my son and daughter were banned from heading in practices and games, they're both good at heading the ball at U15 club soccer. Maybe it's because we have giant foreheads in my family, or maybe it's because they were taught how to properly head the ball when they had enough body control. I'd rather my kids have a good old time playing safely when they're younger than worry about dinosaur-thought ideals on the headed ball. At the end of the day the likelihood that they'll ever play pro or world cup soccer is miniscule and preventing them from brain injury at a young age far outweighs anything they'll learn from a rare meaningful header. It's much like those dipsticks teaching their 11-year-old son to throw a curve ball so he can blow out his arm and never play high school baseball. Each skill in due time. Just my opinion, based on my experience, your mileage may vary.
Off topic that someone may find interesting: From the research I did a few years ago when my son was pitching, this is a bit of a myth. The biggest danger to young pitchers is pitch count. And the danger on that from parents is the parents who sign the kid up to play both PONY and club (and some even do three teams at the same time), coupled with doing it year round instead of taking time off. So the kid plays within pitch limits for each, but combined between the two is way over what he should be throwing. (My son played with a kid who needed Tommy John surgery at 12; but you can't have it until you stop growing . So that was the end of the kid's pitching "career.") With respect to curve balls, what I found was two types of study. The first went back and looked at the old studies concluding curve balls were bad. Apparently those studies were focused on curves, so they did not control for pitch count. And not surprisingly, the kids throwing curves were the same ones throwing lots of pitches. The second was one or two stress studies on pitching motion, which found that a fast ball puts more strain on the arm than a properly thrown curve. (I don't recall the specific physics of why that was--I think it was partially the motion and partially the fact that a fast ball is thrown all out while a curve is not.) As I said, this was a few years ago I was looking at this, and decided to let the right person teach my son a curve at age 12. But that was 5 or 6 years ago--I'd encourage anyone with a kid who pitches to see what the follow ups to those have been to protect the kid.
I've just finished reading Soccer IQ, and the author discusses heading. He still has to coach it in college, so even kids raised in the last 10 years still need to be coached on it once the get to college. Secondly, he had concussions occur from practicing heading, so now even uses a slightly deflated ball. Either way, Spencedawg covered it perfectly!
Doh! Because I type badly. "An intentional" in my mind got typed as unintentional. Don't know if my mind was still not fully made up on true intent and played a part in that trick. BU10... so there was still some doubt, but time and distance he could have moved or let it go.