Your 12-year-old daughter is looking at back- to-school shoes. They are, of course, entirely unsuitable. Those ultra-flat, ballet-type slippers look like they have cardboard soles and will immediately and forcibly collapse the arches of the wearer.

You must get the shoe-seller on side. She is 18 or 19, pop-starry-looking and you know that your daughter will take her word as gospel. You take her to one side and say: “Excuse me, but my daughter is looking at shoes I don’t want her to buy. Can you discreetly say to her: ‘Not only are these flatties so last year but all the girls I know who have worn them are pigeon- toed, knock-kneed and deeply unpopular’.”

The shoe-seller is wearing the fixed grin of one who is about to press the panic button under the counter but, more to the point, she is also wearing the dreaded ballet slippers. Her arches, you note, are non-existent.

Bob Hardy, the foot-fitting manager for Clarks, says the dilemma for the shoe-seller is this: “We are, in effect, serving two different people with entirely different demands at the same time.” That is for ordinary shoe shopping. Factor in the back-to-school element and it is just another set of requirements to keep the school happy, as well as parent and child. He says boys want anything that looks vaguely like a trainer; girls want something with a substantial heel or completely flat. Parents are drawn to the dreaded “sensible-looking” footwear, with leather and laces and durability.

And yet fashion quibbles aside, many of us are still getting it badly wrong. A study by Glasgow Caledonian University last year revealed that 83 per cent of five to six year-olds are wearing shoes that are too small. This is probably because as parents we don’t know what we are meant to be checking for; ideally, we should be able to leave that to the shoe-seller. But not all shoe-sellers are qualified shoe-fitters. So what is our job and what is theirs? Gordon Watt, a podiatrist and a lecturer in paediatric podiatry at Glasgow Caledonian University says: “A good shoe-fitter fits shoes to the best of his ability. The onus is on the parent to check with a registered podiatrist if they have particular concerns.” Charlotte Hawkins, a paediatric podiatrist in Harley Street, Central London, says that those concerns include: “Anything that doesn’t look right to the parent or that the child complains about. For example, knee pain, which is often dismissed as ‘growing pains’, needs looking at, postural problems or a bouncy gait, or if the foot rolls inwards a lot as the child walks.”

Watt adds that the wear and tear on the shoes gives a good indication of potential problems. “If the heels are being worn down excessively or worn down straight across the back, or if the inner part of the reinforced part that joins the shoe with the heel gets very worn down, there might be a foot problem, a postural or lower body structural problem that should be checked by a podiatrist.”

Unfortunately, comfort appears not to be high on the agenda. For children the important thing is that their shoes won’t get slated by their mates. In an informal poll among parents of primary and early secondary school children, the consensus was that boys are becoming fussier earlier about what is “cool” and what is not acceptable to peers, and girls, no surprises here, just want a newer, more expensive version of what all the older girls are wearing.

Parents, meanwhile, are concerned with comfort and value for money. Therein lies a common mistake, which is to buy half a size or even a whole size up “to allow for growth”. Too big and the child has to claw the toes to keep the foot in the shoe, or they are more prone to tripping. Too small, and the feet get pressure marks, sore toes and blisters, which can predispose children to developing toe and foot deformities as adults. Watt says that it is a peculiarity of children to wear shoes that are too small without complaining. But he is not against children “living” in one pair of school shoes. “Children’s feet do about half the growing until they are 4 and then they grow at a steady rate. It is better to have shoes that have been fitted properly and to wear them until destruction.”

Watt, however, has a passionate dislike of dolly shoes, which have been in fashion for a couple of years. “Children tend to wear them far too small so they don’t fall off their feet. As they walk you can see their toes bulging out of them. Plus, I don’t think that there is a true facility to measure for length or width for these shoes and, consequently, we are beginning to see foot pathologies associated with them, including Plantar fasciitis (an inflammation of the structure that binds the hind foot to the fore foot) and Achilles tendonitis.” But Watt points out most shoe-related problems present in later life.

Surprisingly, Watt is not anti-trainers. “As long as the trainers are fitted properly and are made from leather, they have most of the characteristics of a good shoe.” It is a view supported by the Society of Chiropodists and Podiatrists, which advises parents that they should also check that the trainers are properly laced, and avoid synthetic linings and plimsolls that encourage sweating and fungal infections, such as athlete’s foot.

Having told my daughter that dolly shoes and plimsolls would leave her crippled later in life I found my back-to-school shopping trip was remarkably stress-free. My daughter chose sensible but not ugly Ecco lace-ups, a fair £55, and my son went for a £30 pair of trainers. I’ve been let off lightly.

GETTING A GOOD FIT

For a complete guide, go to www.feetforlife.org and download a free copy of Looking Out for Children’s Feet, a foot health brochure.