The Unthinkable Happened! But It Was Ok

I do some volunteer work for a teen group. Sometimes they have overnight events where they all bring their sleeping bags and sleep on the floor of a church hall or whatever. On a broader note, I personally try to remain "barefoot neutral" when dealing with this group. Outside of an obvious safety issue, I'll never encourage or discourage anyone to go barefoot. That said, the teens may not be "barefooters" necessarily, but they like to be comfortable, and that often means going barefoot. Now some of the other adults, as you might expect, tell them they MUST go put shoes on. I just roll my eyes (I mean, my kids go barefoot pretty much everywhere... but yeah, you need to worry about this kid who walked across the school gym without socks on his way to go to bed, whatever.)

Anyway, one morning the kids were waking up. They obviously sleep in a separate room from the adults, but we were starting to congregate once they were all dressed and decent. One kid comes up to me, one foot is bare, the other has a sock on it, and he's carrying his other sock. Kid's probably 13 or so, asks me if I have a bandaid. I say sure, I can get you one, why do you need it. It points to his foot and says, oh I stepped on a pin or something. No big deal, I just don't want to get blood on my sock. I take a peek and he has a little dot on his heel that's bleeding a tiny bit. So I give him a bandaid and he puts it on and gets on with his day.

So that's the big emergency everyone's terrified of? Kid steps on something sharp, kid gets little booboo, kid puts on bandaid and doesn't think anything of it. This is why some people go batshit mental if they see a kid in bare feet anywhere other than next to the pool? Seriously?

 

Yeah well if you raise children in shoes they are going to have soft feet and not look to avoid hazards when barefoot.
Wearing shoes is a majority choice in developed countries, we've just got to accept it and get on with life :daisy:

Sx

 

I hope that his parents are not in the anti-vaccine crowd.

 

My wife and I were houseparents at a childrens home. We had eight boys. The most healthy and athletic kids were the ones that went barefoot all the time. They even played basketball and football barefoot.

 

When I was younger and used to run around barefoot at such events, or when I would be barefoot in school, I was always told it was a liability issue. Even If I was being the utmost careful, IF something serious did happen, the organization (school, girl guild association, ect) could get sued. It is not that the adults cared if I was barefoot, it is just that it was in their best interest to avoid a lawsuit.

 

Children who do not follow simple common sense rules need discipline.

 

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