Barefoot Children, smarter (and above all, happier)

Barefoot Children, smarter (and above all, happier)
Updated 3 June 2019

A while ago we explained what were the possible reasons for the children to get away so often. Despite this, parents often insist on putting them shoes, even when they don't need them, because they don't walk.

We knew how comfortable and happy the kids are exploring their bare feet. Now, a study points out that the habit of early putting babies and children can negatively affect their development and that, by against, barefoot children develop their intelligence better:

Today there is a tendency to fit children early. There are shoes called footwear for preandantes and footwear for born. In this article it is intended to offer scientific arguments that justify the need to leave barefoot the feet of non-walking babies. As a method, the analysis and critical reading of different bibliographical sources has been used in relation to the child's psychomotor development, neurology treaties and the main theories on the development of intelligence in the child. We found that the physical movement and the sensory stimulus of the baby through barefoot feet is a factor of maturation acceleration, the propioceptivo development and the intellectual development of the child.
The Best Barefoot Children: quiet, they will not catch a cold for it
This is how the study begins, entitled "Preventive Podiatry: Barefoot Children equal to smarter children", prepared by Isabel Gentile García, professor of the university school of nursing, physiotherapy and podiatry of the complutense university of Madrid.

In It, a criticism is made of the profusion of advertising and footwear shops for "Pre-orders", as well as the excessive pediatric recommendation of putting babies. In your opinion, this act should only be necessary in order to hold your feet, and as a demonstration offers scientific arguments that justifcan the need to leave barefoot the feet of non-walking babies, through an interdisciplinary approach.

Why are the baby's feet so important
From the point of view of neurológio development and touch sensitivity, the feet of the newborn have a much thinner sensitivity than that of hand up to eight or nine months.

So in the first months the feet have an essential function: report the outside world to the baby, which touches with them everything that has at its fingertips, manipulates them with their hands and leads them to the mouth where the sensory nerve endings are greater . From this age the foot gradually loses this kind of sensitivity.

The fact of continually putting babies who do not walk deprives them of tactile information and the perception of the position and movement of the feet in relation to space, which play an important role in the central nervous system. Therefore, for the maturation of motor skills, the development of manual visual coordination and the acquisition of these tactile and perceptual information are necessary.

The study is also based on the stages of Piaget's development of intelligence, focusing on the first, in the stage stage (from birth to two years), when the manipulation, movement and learning to organize in a skilled way are important The sensory information. The first notion of me, space, time and the idea of causality is acquired.

Flat Feet
Without a doubt the feet, as privileged recipients, would contribute to a better development of the baby's intelligence, and this is so because intelligence develops through:

The maturation of the nervous system, this is the ability to differentiate and discriminate every time a greater number of stimuli and it has to do with the differentiation of nerve cells.
The experience of interaction with the physical world, this is manipulation, the handling of objects. It means knowing the functioning of objects through manipulating them. The development of intelligence would not be possible without that manipulation, because the maturation of the nervous system is not independent of the experience. Next to the hands and mouth, the feet also have a fundamental role.
The need to learn. The human mind tends to cognitive balance. Every time there is an external stimulus that we do not understand we tend to understand. The Cognitive system tends to look for new information to rebalance, that's why the interest to learn has to do with seeking increasingly complex and stable knowledge structures.
To class without shoes! Children who go barefoot learn more and better
In addition to Piaget the author focuses on other authors to demonstrate her theory, and it is that in the end all agree that development is the result of a complex interaction between the environment and the body and that one of the environmental factors that most intervenes in its development It's the body itself and its self-knowledge.

One of the funniest images we discovered of the baby towards the three months is that he looks and touches his hands and feet with curiosity. Start Discovering your body, and shoes to a good extent remain sensitivity, movement... from the six-seven months, babies usually take their feet to the mouth in that process of self-knowledge and providing new sensations and experiences Motor that contribute to the development of their intelligence.

In addition, the fact of supporting the barefoot foot in all kinds of surfaces, also irregular, contributes to muscle development. Footwear called pre-order or footwear for the born prevents receiving sensations, plus adds excessive weight to the feet preventing them from moving freely. All of this explains why children, when they have greater control of their body, take off their shoes continually.

Some socks would be worth it to not be cold, although if babies usually take their feet to the mouth they are not convenient, and anyway they learn very quickly to take them off too. And, as I said a long time ago, I consider that baby shoes are very beautiful but little useful, my daughters took them really little, also for the theme of the price: they are probably the most expensive garments in relation to their size.

In Short, the study concludes that putting the little ones when they still don't know how to walk can harm their development, and that those "Pre-orders" shoes have no justification. Looks like this is a new reason to let the children, if it's not cold, go barefoot at home, although it was enough to see how comfortable and how happy they were exploring their feet, don't you think?