Chances are, if you have little kids or middle-schoolers, you will find yourself shopping for a new pair of shoes sometime during the school year. (I know my kids tend to destroy shoes at recess pretty quickly!)
But if your child is in the market for a pair of light-up shoes, you might be shocked to discover, as one parent recently was, that some kids’ light-up shoes now come with an on-off switch.
The sobering reason why? So the kids can switch the light-up feature off if they need to hide from a school shooter.
Paul Wignall (@plwignall) recently shared a Threads post describing how his six-year-old daughter wanted to buy a pair of light-up shoes.
When he realized that the shoes now come advertised with an on/off switch, he immediately had the horrifying realization that the on/off feature was a direct response to school shootings.
"The reason why this product exists with a switch for children’s shoes makes me feel disgusted to be an American right now," Paul wrote.
Other parents chimed in on the post, saying they had similar realizations about light-up shoes for their own children.
“My son isn’t even allowed to wear the ones that turn off at school,” wrote one parent. “They said they are still too dangerous in case the child forgets to shut them off during a school sh**ting. That’s a horrible thing to tell a 1st grader. ‘Hey kid your light up Spider-Man shoes may get you k*lled.’ Unfortunately, he doesn’t want to wear them anywhere now.”
Some schools have taken to banning kids' light up shoes all-together.
“Yes my son came home last year in kindergarten and told me his teacher said bad guys might be able to find the class of his shoes were going off. His didn’t have a switch. He loved those shoes and was so excited about them and was then afraid to wear them,” wrote another mother on Threads.
“This genuinely breaks my heart,” observed another commenter.
Because today’s youth and teens have all grown up with active shooter drills, they also have chimed in on the conversation.
“Last school year my teacher told us that there was this kindergarten class during a shooting and they all hid and one student had light up shoes and they stood completely still,” wrote one TikToker.
“I remember in 3rd grade we did a drill but they didn’t tell us that it was one and I had light up shoes I vividly remember everyone frantically covering my feet it was terrifying,” added another TikToker.
However, other parents point out that the on/off switch has other useful functions too.
For instance, the shoes can be shut off in places that you don’t want your kid to have light-up abilities, like simply going into the movie theatre. Kids can kick a lot, right?
“Stride Rite was the first to put buttons on their light up shoes yearsss ago,” wrote another parent on Threads. “Nap time at day care, the school assembly, movie theater, other places it would be a distraction, maybe you just want to save the battery… If you’re that worried, don’t get light-up shoes at all. Nobody is thinking to press the button when they’re in a state of panic.”
Some parents also simply choose not to let their kids wear light-up shoes at school, in fear the lights will make them easier to spot during a shooting or while attempting to hide.
Regardless of the origin of the on/off switch on light-up shoes, and if shoe companies truly are designing them with school shooting situations in mind, it is a fact that some schools and teachers are either discouraging or outright banning elementary students from wearing them.
For instance, one Utah school listed “no light-up shoes” in their school uniform policy, along with other footwear like Crocs and glitter shoes.
The school may cite reasons such as that the shoes can be distracting to other students, may pose a safety hazard because of the batteries, or may be triggering to some students with light sensitivity, but some parents are also convinced that another reason is that the lights can make a child easier to spot in the event of an emergency.
“We allow our daughter to have light up shoes but it’s to never be worn to school, it’s not worth the risk,” summed up one mom on a TikTok video. “It breaks my heart that we as parents have to worry about what kind of shoes your child wears.”
