Learn 10 benefits of going barefoot including; the healthy development of the feet, proper foot mechanics, kinesthetic awareness, sensory stimulation, fine motor control, and foot strength.
There are many benefits of walking barefoot that help me feel confident about allowing my daughter ample barefoot playtime.
Yup, I’m that mom… The mom that lets her little scallywag of a child storm the playground in her bare feet. To your surprise, you will hear me happily proclaim, “sure” when she asks to take her shoes off while on a hike or to jump in a puddle.
Why? …Because walking around barefoot is a great way to help the feet and body grow and develop properly well into adulthood!
Benefits of Walking Barefoot for Children and Adults
There are many reasons I allow my child to go barefoot outside. Well researched barefoot health benefits that may even make you consider taking your own shoes off the next time you head outdoors.
Is Walking Barefoot Healthy?
The type of shoes that you wear and how often you wear them matters to the health of your feet. Walking around barefoot can improve health and lead to the proper development of the feet and body.
Walking Barefoot Can Help Build a Strong Foundation
As a Kinesiologist B.Sc., I spent an entire year learning about the structure of the foot. The foot is the foundation of the body. A poorly constructed foot will result in a poorly constructed body. Your body needs a strong foundation just as much as your house does.
I was fortunate enough to work for the Los Angeles County Fire Department as an ocean lifeguard for 20 years. Running around barefoot outside all day saving lives… saved the life of my feet.
My late grandmother suffered from terrible foot problems and had many surgeries. I inherited her foot structure but have not suffered in the same way that she did. She made the mistake of wearing pointed high-heeled shoes in her younger years, while I ran around in the sand barefoot all day lifeguarding.
Because of my grandmother’s choice of footwear, she was not able to walk for the last 6 years of her life. I was able to strengthen my feet while she tore her foundation apart.
Is It Okay to Walk Barefoot?
Yes, it is more than okay. Walking around barefoot without shoes is in fact recommended by many pediatricians and podiatrists today for children and adults of all ages.
Learn 10 benefits of walking barefoot, an example of how walking barefoot helped one little girl develop normally, and more below!
Barefoot Health Benefits: 10 Reasons Walking Barefoot is Good for Children and Adults of All Ages
1. Proper Development of the Foot and Body Can Happen Naturally When The Feet are Allowed to Roam Free
One of the most important advantages of walking barefoot is the proper development of the foot and body–our physical foundation. Remember, your body needs a strong foundation just as much as your house does.
Walking barefoot can help develop and maintain an appropriate range of motion in the foot and ankle joints, in addition to adequate strength and stability within the muscles and ligaments of the feet and body. (source)
Conversely, forcing children’s feet to conform to the shape of a shoe will most likely result in permanent changes to the shape or construction of the foot.
A poorly constructed foot (foundation) can alter one’s gait and lead to a malformed knee, hip, or pelvis. Sometimes, it will be a domino effect through the knee, hip, and pelvis and can even affect the spine and lung cavity (core) as the child grows.
The last thing your feet need is a big bad shoe making them conform all the time! Tell your shoes to go stuff themselves and go for a walk outside barefoot every once in a while.
2. Going Barefoot Can Help Strengthen the Feet and Body
Walking barefoot is the best way to strengthen and maintain the full function of your feet and body. For example, strong feet and leg muscles can help support the back to reduce or eliminate back pain in both children and older adults.
Because the shape and density of the bones and muscles in your feet are a direct result of the loads placed on your body, poor footwear can affect the way the bones and muscles in their entire body develop, and, lead to improper musculoskeletal development.
In other words, improper footwear can weaken foot and leg muscles and cause a loss of strength in the feet and body that will more than likely lead to physical pain over time because so many functions of our feet are altered when wearing shoes.
In the past, the prescription for flat feet was to walk barefoot in order to strengthen the feet. This is why it is so important to allow your children to strengthen their feet and body by allowing them ample barefoot playtime. (source)
3. Walking Barefoot Can Lead to Better Foot Mechanics
Overprotective footwear can interfere with movement patterns. Walking barefoot allows for better control of foot position when it hits the ground while stabilizing modern footwear can interfere with the development of a child’s foot strength, ankle stability, and movement pattern.
If a child wears shoes that help them stabilize their foot how will the child ever learn to stabilize their foot without the shoe? Avoid deformity, weakness, and loss of mobility by allowing your children to go barefoot every once in a while.
Modern athletic footwear of the current fashion that incorporate yielding – resilient materials in the soles, attenuate adequate stimuli of these receptors, necessitating reliance on less precise sensory sources for foot position judgements. This results in poor foot position awareness, and consequently poor stability, frequent ankle sprains and excessive impact. (source)
4. Being Barefoot Helps Develop the Fine Motor Muscles in the Feet
Children become more adept at using their feet when they are allowed to roam barefoot. (source) When allowed to go free, the feet can become sensitive instruments and tools. Otherwise, they become the forgotten appendage forever bound within a shoe.
Could you imagine if we wore shoes on our hands? How would we develop the fine motor muscles in our hands if they were constantly bound? The feet have fine motor muscles that need to develop too!
Barefoot kids can improve fine motor muscle control, and learn how to use their feet the way they were meant to be used!
5. Walking Barefoot Can Help Children Improve Kinesthetic Awareness
Going barefoot can help improve kinesthetic awareness. Kinesthetic awareness is the knowledge of where our body is in space and how we move. It is also known as muscle memory.
When our feet are in direct contact with the ground it is a lot easier for children to develop their kinesthetic sense. Increased kinesthetic awareness can lead to improved body awareness and help children learn to navigate the space around them safely.
Kinesthetic awareness, proprioception, and the other sensory systems of the body all work together to help us move properly from the inside and from the outside of the body. Walking barefoot can help these important systems in the body develop properly.
6. Going Barefoot Can Help Improve Proprioception
Proprioception is the sense of the relative position of body parts in relation to the other parts of the body and provides us with information about our joint and muscle sensations.
In other words, it refers to the inner messaging of the body that tells us where one foot is in relation to the other foot, or where the feet are in relation to the head. When children are allowed to walk and play barefoot, they can improve their proprioceptive sense.
7. Walking Barefoot Can Help the Brain and the Sensory Systems of the Feet and Body Develop Properly.
Walking barefoot can help brain development as children learn to balance and develop all of the other sensory systems in the body including proprioception. When we place shoes on our children’s feet we reduce the amount and quality of sensory information the child is getting about their environment and body.
Feeling the earth beneath their feet allows children to develop their somatosensory, proprioceptive, and vestibular sensory systems in ways that are not possible with shoes on.
Our sensory system helps us perceive our body within the outside world through sight, touch, taste, smell, and sound; while our proprioceptive sense helps us develop a relationship to our own body in space, and, kinesthetic awareness tells us where our body is in space.
All three of these systems in the body are benefited by walking barefoot outside and all work together to improve the overall health of the brain and body.
8. Going Barefoot May Be Able to Stimulate the Reflexology Points on the Bottom of the Feet
When children are allowed to walk around without shoes the reflexology points on the bottom of the feet can stimulate every major organ in the body. This is good for the healthy development of the whole body. (source)
9. Walking Barefoot Outside can Help Us Connect with Nature and Literally Ground Us.
When bare feet touch the earth they come in contact with negative ions. These negative ions have been researched to have a healing anti-inflammatory effect on the body.
When we wear shoes we are creating a shield from the earth and restricting our exposure to the greatest antioxidant source in the world.
Earthing (also known as grounding) refers to contact with the Earth’s surface electrons by walking barefoot outside or sitting, working, or sleeping indoors connected to conductive systems, some of them patented, that transfer the energy from the ground into the body. Emerging scientific research supports the concept that the Earth’s electrons induce multiple physiological changes of clinical significance, including reduced pain, better sleep, a shift from sympathetic to parasympathetic tone in the autonomic nervous system (ANS), and a blood-thinning effect. The research, along with many anecdotal reports, is presented in a new book entitled Earthing. (source)
10. Walking Barefoot Outside can Help Kids Stay Safe.
Barefoot kids are safe kids!
I know what you’re thinking… Walking barefoot can help my child safe!? But what about glass, bees, dog feces, and other hazards?
Going barefoot outside can help keep children safe because they will have more control when climbing, running, playing on the playground, etc. They will have more control because their feet will be in direct contact with whatever surface they are on.
You’re right… They will have to be on the lookout for glass and other hazards, but their feet will be tough and able to handle most everything else.
If disease and contamination are what worries you about walking barefoot outside, try the barefoot shoes listed in “recommended shoes for children” below.
Or, allow your children to go barefoot only in areas that you feel are safe enough for your children’s bare feet to run around in. Even if the only place you allow your children to go barefoot is in the comfort of your own home.
I don’t know about you, but I feel a whole lot safer knowing that my child is able to feel the tree (or rope) that she has her foot on instead of struggling to keep the sole of her foot from slipping off of it.
How Walking Barefoot Helped a Child Develop Properly
The advantages of going barefoot are many, and I have personally witnessed a massive transformation in one child’s foot health as a result of walking barefoot outside.
When I ran childcare in my home many years ago, I had a one-year-old child in my care with clubbed feet. This is where one or both feet rotated inwards and downwards. In her case, it was both feet.
This sweet little girl traveled 2 hours once a month to be poked a prodded by doctors and specialists that said she would never walk normally.
At that time, we lived on a 1-acre lot with lots of uneven terrain and secret places to explore. It was a wild acre with one massive oak tree in the middle, and at least 10 other large trees and bushes growing around it.
On most days, weather permitting, I allowed the children to walk around barefoot both inside and outside.
After spending 8 months in my care, the doctors and specialists claimed that this little girl was “cured.” They called it a miracle and asked her parents what they had done to make such a dramatic improvement.
When her parents explained the barefoot play therapy her daycare provider had given her they were shocked, but not surprised. Of course, they said… That makes perfect sense. “Going barefoot helps the feet develop properly!”
Shoe Recommendations for Barefoot Kids and Adults
Even though there are lots of advantages to walking barefoot outside, shoes are necessary and wonderful additions to anyone’s wardrobe!
This article was not written to encourage everyone to abandon them completely and run for the hills like a bohemian army–lol!
However, stiff and compressive footwear may cause weakness, deformity, and loss of mobility. Improper footwear can also cause bunions, hammertoes, and other foot deformities over time.
What children need are barefoot walking shoes that can allow them to move and grow as opposed to shoes with too much structure and rigidity. The most helpful shoes, for both children and adults, allow the foot to breathe and move properly.
Look for shoes that are durable, flexible, and have plenty of room to grow. Have a look at our favorite shoe recommendations, including barefoot shoes, listed in the next section.
Should kids be allowed to wear high heels?
Whatever you do, please, please, please keep your children far away from high heels.
If they must be worn, reserve them for only very special occasions… And make sure the feet get plenty of barefoot freedom (or at least comfortable shoe freedom) before and after the event.
Why are high heels bad for girls?
Although the structure of the foot is developed by 2 years of age, the bones in a child’s feet are not fully developed and hardened until they reach adulthood.
Wearing high heels before the age of 18 can decimate the feet.
Baby’s and pre-walkers do not need shoes for any other reason than to provide warmth and protection if they are worn at all. Look for flexible shoes or booties that do not bind the feet and allow a full range of movement like THESE.
Toddlers and young children need a flexible, lightweight, and well-ventilated shoe. Some popular shoe brands that make excellent shoes for toddlers, preschoolers, and older kids can be found below.
Birkenstock–of course, you knew I was going to say that didn’t you?
The most recent innovation in shoe design for healthy feet is barefoot shoes. Barefoot shoes have also been labeled minimalist shoes.
We love barefoot shoes because they are designed with enough support to provide stability and protect the feet while allowing for movement and flexibility.
They mirror the natural shape and design of your feet while allowing important sensory feedback, proper foot mechanics, and body alignment.
Unlike bare feet, barefoot shoes have the added bonus of a sole that won’t leave you vulnerable to whatever may be laying on the ground. Even barefoot kids need barefoot shoes sometimes!
A few of our favorite barefoot shoes for kids (and adults) can be found listed below. Mom and dad need barefoot shoes, too!
The type of shoes that you wear, and how often you wear them, matters to the health of your feet. Walking barefoot can improve the function of the feet and can help the feet and body develop properly.
Give your child’s feet and sensory systems the opportunity to grow properly by allowing your children to go barefoot once in a while. Feel free to take your shoes off, too… I always do!
If walking barefoot outside is still NOT your thing, please don’t look at me like I’m a terrible mother that should make her child put her shoes on. I’m not giving you sideways glances about the fact that your child has their shoes on am I?
Nell has over 25 years of experience working with children as a caregiver, educator, and coach, and is the founder of Rhythms of Play. She believes in the power of the imagination, learning through play, making this world a greener place to live, and getting outside in all seasons! Learn more...
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It also helps when barefoot to connect with the natural environs. Shoe’s rubber soles will insulate you and diffuse your body’s interaction to and from nature.But what you step in or on,in some locales must be safe.
I am always barefoot and my kids are too. As long as they aren’t doing anything athletic, I just teach them to watch where they step! I never knew there were so many great reasons to back it up, I just always hated shoes. My mom could never keep them on my feet!
That’s great that you have spent most of your life barefoot and allow your kids to do the same. I think kids instinctively know how good it is for them to go barefoot and that’s why it is so hard to keep them on their feet. I never even bothered battling my daughter about it. I just allow her to make her own choice. She knows when mama tells her to put her shoes on I have a good reason for it so she doesn’t fight me on it. She did at first, but now she knows I only ask her to put them on when she has to and that’s that.
I totally agree with your article. I grew up in California and was always barefoot. Now I live in the midwest, and I even run outside to take the trash out or get the mail barefoot in the snow (it’s a quick trip but I still do it!) I have told my granddaughters that they need to feel the earth when they go barefoot (their mom doesn’t let them much). When they ask if they can take off their shoes when they are with Grandma, and I say sure!, it’s like a big event for them, and they love it! Gotta love those negative ions! I let the girls play in the dirt and dig for worms, barefoot, of course! They love being at grandma’s!
I’m so glad that your grandchildren have the opportunity to get wild and free in nature with their grandma! So glad to know you appreciate the great outdoors and are instilling that love with your grandchildren. 🙂
I love when people are able to give me solid, scientific reasons to back up their choices. Between the time when I read the title of your post and the time I finished reading, you absolutely changed my opinion on this matter. What wonderful information, thank you!
Thank you! I love it when people are willing to open their minds to another point of view. I don’t wish to point any fingers or claim that those that make their children keep their shoes on are doing anything “wrong.” Nor do I want people to think that those that choose to allow their children to take their shoes off are doing it “right.” There is no right and wrong in matters like these just like there is no right or wrong in any parenting decision that we make. It is just parents making choices that are best for their family.
This is fantastic! I can’t find basic, leather shoes that fit my 15 month old, and don’t want to put him in shoes with hard/rubber soles yet, so he is barefoot all the time. We had a day out over the weekend and he spent ages stomping in a mud puddle. What a rich sensory experience!
So glad you like it Amy! So glad your son was able to soak up the full sensory experience of that mud puddle. That’s how the best learning takes place. 🙂
I wish I would have known the benefits of being barefoot years ago! I started going barefoot in my everyday life a few years ago, even some of my employment I’ve been able to work barefoot! Now my feet and legs and even my back have been so much better off! No more aches and pains ! The tactile feedback and textures is a sensory delight! Thank you for a great artical!
Hi, I love your post. I am a Family Child Care provider and wanted to ask if I could quote you in my parent book with some info from your post. I have a few families that worry very much about their child playing outdoors barefoot, your words might help them see it from another perspective.
Thank you.
I am so glad that you have found this article about the benefits of going barefoot useful.
As long as your quote does not copy the entire article, and, you use my full name, Nell Regan, this website, Rhythms of Play, and the website address where this original article can be found, I am absolutely fine with that.
I love being barefoot. It makes my feet feel so much better to walk with my shoes off. Shoes trap fungus from sweat and make stinky feet… So I prefer to go barefoot!
Yay! I’m so glad I could help Suzanne! There are many people that I needed to write this article for. My father, for example, doesn’t get the barefoot thing at all! This helped him keep his negative opinions to himself. 🙂
My kids go barefoot all the time, but it has taken some creativity to get the other moms in the neighborhood to realize barefoot is best. For example, our new next door neighbor’s son became best friends with our boys almost as soon as they moved in, but she refused to let him play barefoot even in our yard. Well, I guess I had to follow her instructions, right, unless I had a really good reason for him to go barefoot? So, about a week or two after they moved in, a heavy rain turned some new flower beds in my back yard into deep mud. Somehow, somebody suggested the boys should go have fun in the mud. My boys were soon happily squishing the mud between their bare toes, but for some reason their little friend was holding back. I could tell he needed some encouragement, so I picked him up and carried right into the middle of the muddiest bed before I would put him down. He kept trying to say something about shoes, but my boys were making so much noise I couldn’t really hear. I realized my mistake when I looked down and saw his shoes sinking ankle deep into the mud. That little boy has never worn shoes to our house again!
Oh my! What a fun story about taking the shoes off. I’m so glad he is now able to play outside barefoot over at your house. There are so many amazing barefoot health benefits for the developing child.
She and I both home school our kids, and we live in a small town in central Florida, so shoes really are optional until they start playing organized sports. She just grew up in an apartment in Boston, so it took her a while to get used to the idea that her children didn’t need shoes. The lightbulb finally went off for her when she was at that point in her third pregnancy that getting a four year old and two year old into shoes was just too much bending over, and it wasn’t long until both were going pretty much everywhere around town barefoot. Once she gave birth — to twins — the shoes were pretty much completely forgotten.
I kept her kids when it was time for her to go to the hospital, and as a little experiment, I decided their shoes should stay behind at my house, just to see how long it took her to notice they were missing. She never did, and to this day, their little shoes are still somewhere in my closet. ; )
Thank you, Nell! I love your website and have gotten so many great ideas for my kids reading your posts. My neighbor’s oldest boy is now 6, his sister 4, and the twins 2, with another baby on the way. I can’t help but giggle a little when I see her whole brood barefoot in the Dollar General or Publix, and I remember how just a couple of years ago when they first moved here from Boston she looked at me like I was crazy when I told her that kids’ shoes were too much bother for no good reason. Her little twins literally have never worn shoes, and I can’t imagine she could manage to keep them in shoes even if she wanted to!
Thank you, I appreciate the vote of approval. It’s nice that your neighbor and her children have you as such a positive influence in their lives. “Stay gold!” 😉
Kimmiesays
So, I am the neighbor from Boston Bettie talks about in her posts. Bettie, if you want to post your secrets on the internet, you really shouldn’t have recommended the site to me! LOL. I forgive you Bettie. You were right, in our climate shoes for kids are a lot of bother for no good reason. Still, I had always wondered how Jack’s shoes got so muddy that time after we first moved in, and what happened to my kids’ shoes when I was in the hospital with JT. All I can say is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so be forewarned!
I love your comment to Bettie, “In our climate shoes for kids are a lot of bother for no good reason.” While sometimes they are necessary, it’s a good idea to allow ample barefoot time when possible. Thanks for becoming a reader. 🙂
I am old enough to say that it is absolutely true that everything old is new again! I grew up in a small town in Alabama near the Gulf Coast in the 40s and early 50s, and I can say that many of us were barefoot year-round as children, especially the youngsters, at school, at home and pretty much everywhere except church, and even the youngest kids were barefoot at church. Almost none of the boys, and only some of the girls wore shoes to school until about age 10 or 11 or so, and then somewhere by around 13 or 14 most all of us had discovered the benefits of shoes. : ) I can’t remember any more when we got to the age we were required to wear shoes to school except I know it was by the time we were in high school. We had a cousin who came to live with us when she was 10 I guess, and I remember she was so surprised that we all went barefoot. The first day she went to school with us, she came downstairs wearing her school shoes, and mama pulled her up into her lap and had her cute buckle shoes and knee socks pulled off in an instant. She asked mama what she was doing, and mama said, getting you dressed proper for school. I don’t think it had occurred to our little cousin that she’d be going barefoot like the rest of us, but mama wanted to toughen up her feet so she could run around without ruining her pretty shoes like the rest of us.
Mama put her shoes and all of her socks away for good for the first six months or maybe longer that she lived was us, even for church. Her feet were really tender and sore at first, but mama put a poultice of salt and alum and white oak bark on the bottoms of her feet every night for months until her feet were as tough as any of my brothers. For the rest of us, mama would scrub our feet with Comet to get them clean, but she wouldn’t for our little cousin because she said her feet weren’t tough enough yet, and bath time was never enough to get rid of the black off our soles. I still remember her bare feet with black soles when she’d kneel in church the first few months she was with us. We kids were all so jealous because she was the only one of us mama would let go barefoot to church. But eventually once mama was satisfied that she had good and tough Alabama feet, mama bought her a pair of Sunday shoes, and she started wearing shoes to mass like the rest of us. After six months in bare feet every day, she complained bitterly about having to wear shoes and could hardly keep her balance. She walked like she was wearing roller skates.
Wow! Thank you, Linnie, for sharing your memories of childhood. What a wonderful story! The feet love to move and walk barefoot throughout much of childhood. It’s only natural!
Thanks, Nell. Back in those days, children going barefoot was less about making the child happy — even though we hated wearing shoes and loved going barefoot — and more about grown ups being practical. Our cousin was from Memphis, which was the big city back then, and had never really done much in the way of chores, certainly not like the work we did. She was a pale, delicate girl who was afraid of dirt and had never done a hard day’s work when she arrived. Her first summer with us, mama gave her over to a sharecropper family to work from sun-up to sun-down half of every week and insisted she had to do a full day’s farm work with no hat, no gloves, and no shoes. If mama hadn’t started her going barefoot as soon as she came to live with us, her feet never would have made it through the first day of that kind of work. By the end of the summer, she was as strong and tough and tanned as any boy her age. Mama bragged she was going to rear her up to be the best farm wife in our county, and mama was true to her word. Our cousin never went back to Memphis and is still living on the farm she and her husband started together when she was just 17. She is the only one of us who still has chickens and a milk cow and who still does her farm chores barefoot year round.
What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it with us. I hope that I will be able to say the same, or something similar about my daughter once she is an adult.
I would love a printable version of this, too! I teach years 1 and 2 at a primary school in New Zealand. Our official uniform allows the option of school shoes or sandals or bare feet but we strongly encourage all children to wear bare feet to school especially for the younger children because bare feet are compulsory inside the classrooms and for assembly and most sports. Our Kiwi parents all understand, but we have some immigrant parents who think their children shouldn’t wear bare feet. Your content would be very informative for them. It is so good to see an American who supports bare feet for children! We had an American parent enroll her daughters a few years ago at our school and insisted on her youngest wearing shoes to school even though she was not old enough to tie her laces or manage her shoes and socks without assistance. What do you know but somehow her little shoes kept disappearing from her cubby? After the fourth pair were “lost” in her first three weeks at school, her American mother finally gave up and let her come to school in bare feet like our other children. I still can’t imagine what ever happened to her shoes!
Hello Rachel, thank you so much for sharing more about living life barefoot at school in New Zeland. I too wish more American’s were like me. 😉 I felt that I needed to counter some of the dirty looks I have received over the years, so I wrote this article as a way to explain all of the benefits of walking barefoot. I know that it has helped other mothers in the US feel a bit more comfortable about allowing their children to go barefoot more often because many have told me so. Feel free to share it with anyone you feel needs a little convincing. 🙂
Thanks, Nell. I love your crafts ideas, too, and plan to use many of your crafts projects in my classroom (that is how I found your site and your wonderful essay on why children shouldn’t wear shoes). My favorite crafts project, though, is the shoe fence my class started a few years ago outside our school. A shoe fence is a fence decorated with discarded shoes. We started it the same term that the little American girl I mentioned joined our class. Somehow four! pairs of brand new school shoes ended up in our crafts box, and that is what gave me the idea. We painted them in school colors, and the children helped to pick where to hang them on the fence. The collection on the fence has grown quite a bit over the years with all sorts of shoes and jandals and even some gumboots. It’s a very Kiwi thing to do — there’s even a toothbrush fence in another part of the country. I always smile and think about that little girl when I walk by our shoe fence.
Wow, Rachel, thank you so much for your vote of approval. You have officially made my day, and that means a lot right now. 🙂 I have been struggling to get any new crafts and articles written during this difficult time in history, but I hope to get back at it soon.
I LOVE what you have shared about your shoe fence, and am wondering if you would like to share it with my audience? If that sounds like something that you would be interested in let me know. 🙂
Thank you, Nell! . That is so kind. Let me know how to get my story and some photos to you, and you can post it if it’s good enough. You set a high standard!
Making a shoe fence is quite simple though. Most people don’t decorate the shoes at all before hanging them on the fence. The reason I painted the first pairs we started with was because people might have gotten confused if they had seen four brand new pairs of school shoes hanging on our fence, especially with the name of the student whose mother had insisted she wear them still written inside each shoe. If we hadn’t painted them, they might have ended up back on that poor girl’s feet!
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Great post. Very informative, yet concise. Beautifully illustrated!
Thanks Harriette! Glad you enjoyed it 🙂
It also helps when barefoot to connect with the natural environs. Shoe’s rubber soles will insulate you and diffuse your body’s interaction to and from nature.But what you step in or on,in some locales must be safe.
Yes, it does help to connect with the natural environment by walking barefoot. Many people call this practice grounding and it is mentioned above.
I am always barefoot and my kids are too. As long as they aren’t doing anything athletic, I just teach them to watch where they step! I never knew there were so many great reasons to back it up, I just always hated shoes. My mom could never keep them on my feet!
That’s great that you have spent most of your life barefoot and allow your kids to do the same. I think kids instinctively know how good it is for them to go barefoot and that’s why it is so hard to keep them on their feet. I never even bothered battling my daughter about it. I just allow her to make her own choice. She knows when mama tells her to put her shoes on I have a good reason for it so she doesn’t fight me on it. She did at first, but now she knows I only ask her to put them on when she has to and that’s that.
I totally agree with your article. I grew up in California and was always barefoot. Now I live in the midwest, and I even run outside to take the trash out or get the mail barefoot in the snow (it’s a quick trip but I still do it!) I have told my granddaughters that they need to feel the earth when they go barefoot (their mom doesn’t let them much). When they ask if they can take off their shoes when they are with Grandma, and I say sure!, it’s like a big event for them, and they love it! Gotta love those negative ions! I let the girls play in the dirt and dig for worms, barefoot, of course! They love being at grandma’s!
I’m so glad that your grandchildren have the opportunity to get wild and free in nature with their grandma! So glad to know you appreciate the great outdoors and are instilling that love with your grandchildren. 🙂
I love when people are able to give me solid, scientific reasons to back up their choices. Between the time when I read the title of your post and the time I finished reading, you absolutely changed my opinion on this matter. What wonderful information, thank you!
Thank you! I love it when people are willing to open their minds to another point of view. I don’t wish to point any fingers or claim that those that make their children keep their shoes on are doing anything “wrong.” Nor do I want people to think that those that choose to allow their children to take their shoes off are doing it “right.” There is no right and wrong in matters like these just like there is no right or wrong in any parenting decision that we make. It is just parents making choices that are best for their family.
This is fantastic! I can’t find basic, leather shoes that fit my 15 month old, and don’t want to put him in shoes with hard/rubber soles yet, so he is barefoot all the time. We had a day out over the weekend and he spent ages stomping in a mud puddle. What a rich sensory experience!
So glad you like it Amy! So glad your son was able to soak up the full sensory experience of that mud puddle. That’s how the best learning takes place. 🙂
I wish I would have known the benefits of being barefoot years ago! I started going barefoot in my everyday life a few years ago, even some of my employment I’ve been able to work barefoot! Now my feet and legs and even my back have been so much better off! No more aches and pains ! The tactile feedback and textures is a sensory delight! Thank you for a great artical!
Hi Nick! So glad to hear that going barefoot more often has changed your life for the better! Keep taking those shoes off 🙂
Hi, I love your post. I am a Family Child Care provider and wanted to ask if I could quote you in my parent book with some info from your post. I have a few families that worry very much about their child playing outdoors barefoot, your words might help them see it from another perspective.
Thank you.
Thank you, Fer.
I am so glad that you have found this article about the benefits of going barefoot useful.
As long as your quote does not copy the entire article, and, you use my full name, Nell Regan, this website, Rhythms of Play, and the website address where this original article can be found, I am absolutely fine with that.
Thank you for asking,
Nell
I love being barefoot. It makes my feet feel so much better to walk with my shoes off. Shoes trap fungus from sweat and make stinky feet… So I prefer to go barefoot!
Me too, Erta!
I’m so glad you enjoy the feeling of walking barefoot, and of the benefits, including better smelling feet!
Love this! My kids play barefoot and my husband can’t stand it! I knew there were benefits!
Yay! I’m so glad I could help Suzanne! There are many people that I needed to write this article for. My father, for example, doesn’t get the barefoot thing at all! This helped him keep his negative opinions to himself. 🙂
My kids go barefoot all the time, but it has taken some creativity to get the other moms in the neighborhood to realize barefoot is best. For example, our new next door neighbor’s son became best friends with our boys almost as soon as they moved in, but she refused to let him play barefoot even in our yard. Well, I guess I had to follow her instructions, right, unless I had a really good reason for him to go barefoot? So, about a week or two after they moved in, a heavy rain turned some new flower beds in my back yard into deep mud. Somehow, somebody suggested the boys should go have fun in the mud. My boys were soon happily squishing the mud between their bare toes, but for some reason their little friend was holding back. I could tell he needed some encouragement, so I picked him up and carried right into the middle of the muddiest bed before I would put him down. He kept trying to say something about shoes, but my boys were making so much noise I couldn’t really hear. I realized my mistake when I looked down and saw his shoes sinking ankle deep into the mud. That little boy has never worn shoes to our house again!
Oh my! What a fun story about taking the shoes off. I’m so glad he is now able to play outside barefoot over at your house. There are so many amazing barefoot health benefits for the developing child.
She and I both home school our kids, and we live in a small town in central Florida, so shoes really are optional until they start playing organized sports. She just grew up in an apartment in Boston, so it took her a while to get used to the idea that her children didn’t need shoes. The lightbulb finally went off for her when she was at that point in her third pregnancy that getting a four year old and two year old into shoes was just too much bending over, and it wasn’t long until both were going pretty much everywhere around town barefoot. Once she gave birth — to twins — the shoes were pretty much completely forgotten.
I kept her kids when it was time for her to go to the hospital, and as a little experiment, I decided their shoes should stay behind at my house, just to see how long it took her to notice they were missing. She never did, and to this day, their little shoes are still somewhere in my closet. ; )
I LOVE all of your wonderful stories about walking barefoot! Going barefoot is such a pleasant way to walk and there are so many health benefits!
Thank you, Nell! I love your website and have gotten so many great ideas for my kids reading your posts. My neighbor’s oldest boy is now 6, his sister 4, and the twins 2, with another baby on the way. I can’t help but giggle a little when I see her whole brood barefoot in the Dollar General or Publix, and I remember how just a couple of years ago when they first moved here from Boston she looked at me like I was crazy when I told her that kids’ shoes were too much bother for no good reason. Her little twins literally have never worn shoes, and I can’t imagine she could manage to keep them in shoes even if she wanted to!
Thank you, I appreciate the vote of approval. It’s nice that your neighbor and her children have you as such a positive influence in their lives. “Stay gold!” 😉
So, I am the neighbor from Boston Bettie talks about in her posts. Bettie, if you want to post your secrets on the internet, you really shouldn’t have recommended the site to me! LOL. I forgive you Bettie. You were right, in our climate shoes for kids are a lot of bother for no good reason. Still, I had always wondered how Jack’s shoes got so muddy that time after we first moved in, and what happened to my kids’ shoes when I was in the hospital with JT. All I can say is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, so be forewarned!
Hi Kimmie!
I love your comment to Bettie, “In our climate shoes for kids are a lot of bother for no good reason.” While sometimes they are necessary, it’s a good idea to allow ample barefoot time when possible. Thanks for becoming a reader. 🙂
Nell
I am old enough to say that it is absolutely true that everything old is new again! I grew up in a small town in Alabama near the Gulf Coast in the 40s and early 50s, and I can say that many of us were barefoot year-round as children, especially the youngsters, at school, at home and pretty much everywhere except church, and even the youngest kids were barefoot at church. Almost none of the boys, and only some of the girls wore shoes to school until about age 10 or 11 or so, and then somewhere by around 13 or 14 most all of us had discovered the benefits of shoes. : ) I can’t remember any more when we got to the age we were required to wear shoes to school except I know it was by the time we were in high school. We had a cousin who came to live with us when she was 10 I guess, and I remember she was so surprised that we all went barefoot. The first day she went to school with us, she came downstairs wearing her school shoes, and mama pulled her up into her lap and had her cute buckle shoes and knee socks pulled off in an instant. She asked mama what she was doing, and mama said, getting you dressed proper for school. I don’t think it had occurred to our little cousin that she’d be going barefoot like the rest of us, but mama wanted to toughen up her feet so she could run around without ruining her pretty shoes like the rest of us.
Mama put her shoes and all of her socks away for good for the first six months or maybe longer that she lived was us, even for church. Her feet were really tender and sore at first, but mama put a poultice of salt and alum and white oak bark on the bottoms of her feet every night for months until her feet were as tough as any of my brothers. For the rest of us, mama would scrub our feet with Comet to get them clean, but she wouldn’t for our little cousin because she said her feet weren’t tough enough yet, and bath time was never enough to get rid of the black off our soles. I still remember her bare feet with black soles when she’d kneel in church the first few months she was with us. We kids were all so jealous because she was the only one of us mama would let go barefoot to church. But eventually once mama was satisfied that she had good and tough Alabama feet, mama bought her a pair of Sunday shoes, and she started wearing shoes to mass like the rest of us. After six months in bare feet every day, she complained bitterly about having to wear shoes and could hardly keep her balance. She walked like she was wearing roller skates.
Wow! Thank you, Linnie, for sharing your memories of childhood. What a wonderful story! The feet love to move and walk barefoot throughout much of childhood. It’s only natural!
Thanks, Nell. Back in those days, children going barefoot was less about making the child happy — even though we hated wearing shoes and loved going barefoot — and more about grown ups being practical. Our cousin was from Memphis, which was the big city back then, and had never really done much in the way of chores, certainly not like the work we did. She was a pale, delicate girl who was afraid of dirt and had never done a hard day’s work when she arrived. Her first summer with us, mama gave her over to a sharecropper family to work from sun-up to sun-down half of every week and insisted she had to do a full day’s farm work with no hat, no gloves, and no shoes. If mama hadn’t started her going barefoot as soon as she came to live with us, her feet never would have made it through the first day of that kind of work. By the end of the summer, she was as strong and tough and tanned as any boy her age. Mama bragged she was going to rear her up to be the best farm wife in our county, and mama was true to her word. Our cousin never went back to Memphis and is still living on the farm she and her husband started together when she was just 17. She is the only one of us who still has chickens and a milk cow and who still does her farm chores barefoot year round.
Hi Linnie!
What a wonderful story! Thank you for sharing it with us. I hope that I will be able to say the same, or something similar about my daughter once she is an adult.
Nell
Hello,
Is there way to get this information in a printable document? I really wanna share it with my co workers
Hi Kaitlin! I do not have a printable version of this document, but I love the suggestion! I will put one together!
I would love a printable version of this, too! I teach years 1 and 2 at a primary school in New Zealand. Our official uniform allows the option of school shoes or sandals or bare feet but we strongly encourage all children to wear bare feet to school especially for the younger children because bare feet are compulsory inside the classrooms and for assembly and most sports. Our Kiwi parents all understand, but we have some immigrant parents who think their children shouldn’t wear bare feet. Your content would be very informative for them. It is so good to see an American who supports bare feet for children! We had an American parent enroll her daughters a few years ago at our school and insisted on her youngest wearing shoes to school even though she was not old enough to tie her laces or manage her shoes and socks without assistance. What do you know but somehow her little shoes kept disappearing from her cubby? After the fourth pair were “lost” in her first three weeks at school, her American mother finally gave up and let her come to school in bare feet like our other children. I still can’t imagine what ever happened to her shoes!
Hello Rachel, thank you so much for sharing more about living life barefoot at school in New Zeland. I too wish more American’s were like me. 😉 I felt that I needed to counter some of the dirty looks I have received over the years, so I wrote this article as a way to explain all of the benefits of walking barefoot. I know that it has helped other mothers in the US feel a bit more comfortable about allowing their children to go barefoot more often because many have told me so. Feel free to share it with anyone you feel needs a little convincing. 🙂
Oh, and, creating a poster is a brilliant idea! I’ll get to work on it. 🙂
Thanks, Nell. I love your crafts ideas, too, and plan to use many of your crafts projects in my classroom (that is how I found your site and your wonderful essay on why children shouldn’t wear shoes). My favorite crafts project, though, is the shoe fence my class started a few years ago outside our school. A shoe fence is a fence decorated with discarded shoes. We started it the same term that the little American girl I mentioned joined our class. Somehow four! pairs of brand new school shoes ended up in our crafts box, and that is what gave me the idea. We painted them in school colors, and the children helped to pick where to hang them on the fence. The collection on the fence has grown quite a bit over the years with all sorts of shoes and jandals and even some gumboots. It’s a very Kiwi thing to do — there’s even a toothbrush fence in another part of the country. I always smile and think about that little girl when I walk by our shoe fence.
Wow, Rachel, thank you so much for your vote of approval. You have officially made my day, and that means a lot right now. 🙂 I have been struggling to get any new crafts and articles written during this difficult time in history, but I hope to get back at it soon.
I LOVE what you have shared about your shoe fence, and am wondering if you would like to share it with my audience? If that sounds like something that you would be interested in let me know. 🙂
Nell
Thank you, Nell! . That is so kind. Let me know how to get my story and some photos to you, and you can post it if it’s good enough. You set a high standard!
Making a shoe fence is quite simple though. Most people don’t decorate the shoes at all before hanging them on the fence. The reason I painted the first pairs we started with was because people might have gotten confused if they had seen four brand new pairs of school shoes hanging on our fence, especially with the name of the student whose mother had insisted she wear them still written inside each shoe. If we hadn’t painted them, they might have ended up back on that poor girl’s feet!
You are too kind, Rachel!
Use the contact form at the top of the page and put “Shoe Fence” in the subject line.
Looking forward to hearing more about it,
Nell
Nell:
I sent you my little story about our shoe fence.
Best,
Rachel
Thank you, Rachel! I will go look for it and get back to you soon. 🙂