Help Your Child Keep Up With Their Classmates
A child who is unable to play with their classmates or keep up during PE class is an unhappy child, indeed. One of the most common reasons for this is because their feet are letting them down. As the parent of a child who is often complaining about sore feet, here are three tell-tale signs that an appointment at your local podiatry clinic is one way to help your child regain an even-footed relationship with even the fastest child in their class.
Leg Favouritism
When it comes to complaints about sore feet, there are a number of signs which reinforce that the issue is more than just an attempt to get out of sports. For example, stand behind your child and watch them walk down a straight path. As they walk, can you see that your child is favouring one leg over another? This happens when part of the leg or the foot is painful to stand on, so instead of putting pressure on the painful leg, your child favours the stronger leg instead. This is not a process you want your child to follow for long because they end up with uneven muscle growth as one leg becomes much stronger than the other.
Accident-Prone
Is your child prone to having accidents because they trip over their own feet while playing? Or do you feel that they lack coordination in their feet? This lack of coordination may be caused by a muscle sprain, irregular muscle development or even a broken bone in the foot. An increase in clumsiness accompanied by a complaint of sore feet is another reason to have your child's feet checked out.
Obvious Foot Deformities
Thirdly, when your child complains about pain in their feet, ask them to take their shoes off so you can take a closer look. In particular, does there appear to be any deformity in the toe growth? Or, is the skin around a toenail bright red and tender, which indicates an ingrown toenail? Does your child appear to have a bony bump on the joint of one of their toes? All these symptoms impact the way your child walks as well as causing pain and tenderness in the foot area.
If you notice any of these three factors in your child, then make an appointment with your local podiatry clinic. They will diagnose the source of the foot pain and then recommend a course of correction to fix it. The faster you get onto this, the quicker your child can get back to happily playing with their friends.