Just have been having to deal with the issue of growing pains in the children. Growing pains in children have a very specific definition – its unexplained pain usually at the back of the knee and upper calf muscles that occurs at night. The cause is thought to be fatigue and sleep related, so is probably a biochemical problem. The real problem with the term growing pains is that any leg pain can often be written off as being a “growing pain” and they will grow out of it. There are several potentially serious (and not common) that cause pain in the leg. This means that every leg pain in the child is not growing pains and must be checked out. I only raise this as a child I know was repeatedly dismissed as having growing pains and it turned out to be an osteosarcoma. If the pain occurs in the day time or in the bone and is not relieved by gentle massage, then its not growing pains.
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