Children’s health can be a very mysterious thing. They pretend to be sick to skip school, they can shake off the most frightening of bumps and falls, and they often can’t vocalise their issues. As a parent, it is your job to monitor them for signs of ill-health. In this blog, we’re going to look at five signs your child may be experiencing foot problems.
Inability to Keep Up
Even in the age of TV and tablets, most kids can turn into unstoppable juggernauts of energy. Their muscles and ligaments are strong and flexible, their energy is sky-high, and their imaginations are running wild. It doesn’t have to apply to a particular pastime, if your child is struggling to keep up with other kids in activities like chasing or football, it could be a cause for concern. If you can rule out other causes such as obesity, it’s possible your child has tired feet or legs. This is often due to overuse, and can be sorted by giving the ligaments some time to rest and recover. Fallen arches or other physical problems may be to blame however, so leave no stone unturned when checking for foot pain.
Complaining
If your child is old enough to be able to voice their pain, it’s important to listen. Of course, children can sometimes be looking for attention. Alternatively, they may be feeling sore, but only in the short term. But if your child is complaining of foot pain for more than a few days, the problem is not likely to go away on its own. If your child cannot vocalise their pain, you will need to observe their behaviour to figure it out. Are they crawling instead of walking, for example?
Guilt
While we’re all used to children lying about being sick, that usually means they’re faking it to get out of school. However, children also lie to make themselves out to be healthier than they are, as they are worried about going to the doctor or having to take disgusting medicine. If your child looks guilty, like they’re trying to hide something, it could indicate a medical problem. If they are suddenly hiding their feet, that could indicate there is a problem. It is important to remember that you cannot rely on children to monitor their own health. Whether they know something is wrong or not does not mean they will tell you the truth.
Withdrawing
If you have a child who is absolutely crazy about football, and suddenly switches to playing Fifa on the couch all day, you may think they’re just another technologically obsessed kid. While this could be the case, it may be another way for the child to try and hide their pain. Whether they’re hiding it deliberately isn’t really relevant. They could just stop playing because it hurts. What matters is that you correctly identify why your child has become withdrawn, and address the root cause. In children, it is often foot or leg pain that causes them to withdraw.
Tripping
Although children trip and fall a lot, why they fall is very important. Tripping over the root of a tree could have a very different cause to tripping while walking or running, for example. While tripping over something is normal, frequently falling with no clear cause could indicate that your child’s feet are misshapen. This could be in the form of fallen arches or overpronation (walking on the inner-side of the foot) for example. Fortunately, the issue of tripping is usually easily addressed by visiting a podiatrist and acquiring the proper footwear.
The signs discussed above are nothing you should be too worried about. Most foot problems in children are easily treatable, and not expensive. The most important thing to remember is to be vigilant, and realise that you need to look out for signs like these, because your children may not be upfront.