There’s no urgency and there’s no sense of embarrassment. Kids would tease a 2nd/3rd grader who couldn’t tie their shoes. Not anymore.

Anonymous wrote:My son was like that at 10- could tie them but so so sloooooowly. Would often walk around with them untied etc. We did of course try many things, none of which seemed to work. He is now a teen and definitely figured it out on his own sometime in his tween years.

Not sure what the problem was TBH, but he did seem to “outgrow” it. Has never had any other issues - good student, very athletic, behaviorally normal etc. Seems it was just a quirk of some sort, or extreme laziness. 🤷‍♀️

Before all the velcro shoes you had to be fast at tying, or else you would left behind. Everyone would run off at recess and the sooner your shoes were tied the sooner you could join up. It was a necessity. Kids today would figure it out too if they had to they aren't inherently inept, there's just no urgency.

Mine was the same way. Eventually she found a method that worked for her at 11 and it just clicked. Means nothing.

If they are amenable, spend a Saturday just working on it, over and over. My ASD kid has lousy fine motor skills and he also fought us on trying for more than two tries for years. And then suddenly a couple of months ago he just decided to do it (this was mostly for sweatpants laces). He is 15. No rhyme or reason why now, but he needed to do it on his own schedule. It was the same for swimming. Fought lessons, wouldn’t work with anyone, and then one day when he was nine just decided to start swimming in the pool.

My kid who is a junior at HYP still does the “ bunny ears” approach. She just wore slip on style shoes for most of the time as a kid so that’s how it worked out. She is an otherwise highly functional young adult.

My DC learned at age 10. We practiced on a big shoe on his lap for several days. I could review and provide tidbits of advice on finger positions and amount of material in the loop, etc. DC could fine tune it on a different shoe without it being his own or without pressure of leaving. After a week of excellent tying, we transferred the skills to their actual shoes. They were motivated by a brand new pair of shoes that they were professionally fitted for and had chosen at the running store. This added motivation. Then I had to add an extra 10 minutes of ‘getting ready’ time each morning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but the bunny ears method is terrible. There's no way to get the shoe to stay tight enough to be wearable. I recommend letting the kid watch videos of the more standard shoe-tying method. Offer a reward for repeatedly tying and untying his shoe.

I tied my shoes bunny ears until I was in my 20s, I never had the issue of them coming undone.

And yet you know longer use that method. Why the change if it was so functional?

Anonymous wrote:Mine couldn’t really do it at 10 either, or was super sloppy. Now at 13 he is fine, he wanted to wear high top shoes with laces and it made him motivated.
He is average in dexterity, fwiw.

Same with my DS.

Mine couldn’t really do it at 10 either, or was super sloppy. Now at 13 he is fine, he wanted to wear high top shoes with laces and it made him motivated.
He is average in dexterity, fwiw.

Kids these days have pretty awful fine motor skills. It's gotten worse since I started teaching 10 yrs ago. Many kids in my kindergarten class have never held a pencil, marker, crayon, etc. Some grasp it in their fist like a baby. They color by moving their entire forearm back and forth like my two yr old does.

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry but the bunny ears method is terrible. There's no way to get the shoe to stay tight enough to be wearable. I recommend letting the kid watch videos of the more standard shoe-tying method. Offer a reward for repeatedly tying and untying his shoe.

I tied my shoes bunny ears until I was in my 20s, I never had the issue of them coming undone.

Make sure all his shoes have flat laces and not round ones. My daughter struggles with the round laces.

At my 5th grader's basketball game today, there was a child who took five minutes to tie their shoe so you are not alone. Mine didn't start doing it well until maybe 8 or 9 years old.

I find that some of the kids sneaker showlaces are the slippery waxed kind, and come undone more easily.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kindergarten teacher here. This is the method I used to teach my son and I send it to my students' parents. It works with shoes with that extra hole at the top.

https://youtu.be/QJVR8hHBQyM?si=SV6LtkhG9Ejp0lWU

If you teach them this method, you will spend several minutes every morning prying apart knotted laces. The bunny ears method has no exit plan. There's no way to untie it without breaking your nails.

+1

I used to have to use a dinner fork to undo these when my kids were small. Super annoying

I never had that issue.