Dear Parents: Lets Talk About Shoes

I have spent years working in a preschool. Its primary purpose was to provide support and services for “children with special needs,” AKA children with disabilities in need of support services.

IDEA was passed in Congress in 1975 guaranteeing all children a right to a free and appropriate education. This means all children, including children with a disability have access to education.

At one time this meant children with disabilities received a separate and not equal education to typical peers. Would it surprise you to hear that parents of children with Down syndrome were among the most vocal parents to champion the right for their children to attend their local school?

Well… we were.

One of the preschools my middle daughter attended was the same preschool her older sister attended. She also attended a preschool that was a special education preschool.

She attended the regular ed preschool in the morning and then she was bussed to the special ed preschool 30 plus minutes away. She napped on the bus ride. At three she was in the process of giving up naps, so that approximately 30-minute ride was just enough to recharge her ever-ready bunny battery.

The director of the special ed preschool was part of the CPSE (committee on special education) meetings that determined programming. We started inviting the director of the regular ed preschool to attend as well.

We did that after a meeting was held and the special ed preschool director questioned why we would extend Sheila’s day in this manner. We did it because we wanted Sheila in an inclusive setting. The special ed school was not inclusive… at the time.

I’ll bet you are wondering what this has to do with shoes. Patience…

The special ed preschool did start enrolling typically developing children in the next year. Our typically developing third child attended this inclusive preschool ten-minutes from our home.

Once all three of my girls were in school, I was hired to work at this preschool.

Our classrooms had three- and four-year-olds of various abilities. Despite their age some of these students were more like early walkers because of gross motor delays.

Every spring we would send out a reminder note to parents that shoes and sneakers were better choices for footwear, even in the summertime.

Why are they a better choice?

For early walkers… any walkers, they provide better stability and support, not to mention protection.

Children would come in with flip-flops and sandals on their feet, and we would start seeing blisters, toe stubs, twisted and rolled ankles, bleeding from scrapes on knees, toes, and tops of feet.

The increase in playground accidents would dramatically rise and the number of incident reports would rise with every stumble and fall.

This same issue became a problem for our summer staff as well.

Summertime and the living really isn’t easier in a preschool. High school grads and college students often are hired as teachers’ assistants if our regular staff have chosen to stay home with their own children for the summer.

Working in a preschool with two or three sites and under 100 staff members means some staff may wear multiple “hats.”

I was one. I was assisting with HR duties as well as supervising our, at that time, one LPN, while also covering one of our other sites.

Often, I was asked to write memos to go out to all staff.

One summer I was asked to send a memo reminding staff to wear sneakers, shoes or, if needs must, sandals that were firmly anchored to their feet. This was after there had been several incidents of staff getting hurt while chasing a child, and the staff person was wearing flip-flops.

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Admin approved the following:

To: All Staff

From: The Nurse’s Office

Re: Flip flops vs sandals or sneakers

When considering what you will be wearing on your feet to chase children each day consider this:

🩴 While podiatrists do not recommend them for daily wear as they do not provide proper support, they are laughing all the way to the bank, and they thank you for wearing them

🩴 Flip flops are correlated with stubbed toes, nail damage, fungal infections and overexposure of the foot to the elements, especially the sun

🩴 Increases risk for skin cancer on top of foot

🩴 People wearing flip flops take shorter strides and grip with their foot to walk resulting in sore feet, ankles and legs (remember that grinning podiatrist? The orthopedist is also grinning.)

🩴 Flip flops are OK for the beach and around the pool – wear them to protect feet from hot sand and pool side surfaces

🩴 They should not be used for running and playing

🩴 Flip flops cause high peak plantar pressures, predisposing wearer to foot problems and may exacerbate existing conditions; again, giving the podiatrists and orthopedists a good laugh as they leave the office in their Mercedes or Jag

🩴 In a large study of 34 childcare centers, teachers found that flip flops could come off easily when running or walking briskly

🩴 Inappropriate footwear may be an important barrier to children's physical activity in child-care settings

🩴 But most of all, you are a model of what is appropriate footwear and what is not appropriate footwear while at school

Please help us keep the children safe by wearing shoes, sneakers. If you must wear sandals, please make sure they stay firmly attached to your feet and they provide some support.

Thanks!

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Twenty years later this memo is still being used every summer to remind staff to be better role models to the children we serve.

And parents are still receiving reminders that shoes and sneakers provide their children more support, stability and protection while they run and play any time of year. Especially during the spring, summer and fall fun-time playing outside.

A human, not an AI text generator, wrote this essay.

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