Take care of their precious feet

A child’s foot is most vulnerable from birth to early teens. Sinéad has undertaken a 6-month training course with the Society of Shoefitters, an organisation founded in 1959.

Ensuring your children’s feet are properly and professionally measured and fitted is absolutely vital to their growth and development. Children’s feet contain more cartilage than an adults and their foot bones are soft and can be so easily damaged.

The majority of children are born with perfect feet. We all need our feet to remain in tip top condition for our long term health, for sport, for most activities and for everyday functioning. Our children’s feet have to last them a long time and take them on many adventures around the globe. Unfortunately, a large percentage of adults are experiencing problems with their feet. An ever-increasing amount of our children are having to use expensive orthotics to correct problem feet. Children today are developing bunions at a young age - a life long, painful and incredibly unsightly condition.

Wearing ill-fitting shoes in childhood can be a major contributing factor to these problems and to foot complaints as an adult. Children’s feet can be easily damaged as they are soft and their growth and development can be seriously impeded by ill-fitting shoes. Many parents do not understand how their child’s shoes should fit and the huge importance of the correct amount of growing room in a new shoe. Shoes that do not provide this can place pressure on the little bones and misshape them. Shoes that are too big will also cause damage - they will cause the child’s foot to claw in order to hold the shoe on. In both cases, the foot is prevented from natural development and movement.