My three, given the opportunity, will kick their shoes off at any given moment and go barefoot - often at the park, and I let them do it. I've watched as other children follow suit and then get dutifully told off for doing so.
We took a walk on Sunday around Box Hill in Dorking, Surrey - as soon as we reached the grass - off came the shoes.
Earthing means to walk barefoot on any natural surface, be it grass, soil or sand - it's apparently good for you. One of the more obvious benefits of walking barefoot is that we have a connection to the earth and it’s magnetic field. Our body is conductive to the earth and the earth is conductive to our body. The earth is full of negative ions and we flood our body with negative ions by walking barefoot, this is also known as grounding.
We walked the route along the River Mole - the kids got in the freezing water, ran through the grass and walked through the woods towards the stepping stones with no shoes.
The stepping stones were busy with tourists waiting to cross - they all seemed amused by the children walking through squelchy mud - then came the obvious question from other curious kids: "Can we take our shoes off and walk in the mud?" - some parents agreed and some immediately said "No!"
I can understand why some parents don't want their kids to get dirty feet, or maybe tread on something sharp in a way - but we were by a river my kids washed their feet and then scraped them dry on the grass.
Throughout history, we’ve always had direct contact with the Earth as part of our day-to-day lives – walking and running barefoot - let the kids do it!
There is a great cafe called Ryka's at the bottom of Box Hill, next to the Burford Bridge Hotel, it is where all the biker's go to meet up. We stopped off for a re-fuel. Box Hill is a lovely picturesque place to go walking.
Do you let your children go barefoot?