how to tell if shoes REALLY are too small

ash28

Put a small shake of talc in the boot - give the boot a bit of shake to shake the talc down to the toes of the boot - it should have a light covering of talc at the front of the boot.

Get your son to try on the boots. Have him take a few steps in them.

Take the boots off and loosen the laces and pull the tongue forward until you can see the toe marks in the talc - it'll show you how far away from the toe of the boot he actually is....

Works for shoes too.

savingqueen

I don't need to know this for myself but I think all the ideas here are brilliant - so resourceful on this forum!

bubblegumcola

I don't know about football boots but generally for shoes kids should have about a thumb width of space at the toe so there is room for growth. I like the idea of the talc test though, especially as so many kids shoes/boots are quite solid at the toe, much easier for checking the football boots I imagine.

sonastin

If your son has a modicum of intelligence and he's decided the boots are too small because his friend has new ones, anything which requires his co-operation (i.e. pushing his foot to the front to check for the gap at the back) is bound to result in the boots being "too small". It only requires a tiny amount of ingenuity to claim that he's pushed his foot right to the front regardless of how much more space he could squeeze into!