Having to tie a child’s shoes is one of those everyday tasks that many parents and teachers find annoying. It’s one reason for the popularity of Velcro shoes or those fancy new pull and tie laces that crimp up and stay taught after you give them a good yank. Eventually, however, children must learn to tie their own shoes, and the sooner you teach them, the less shoe-tying will fall on your shoulders. This information will make learning the task a breeze.

When can children learn to tie their shoes?

Most children don’t have the dexterity and fine motor skills necessary to master the technique of tying their own shoes before the age of about 3 1/2. Anytime after that it’s okay for them to start learning.

In most of the pre-k classrooms I’ve worked in (4- to 5-year-olds), there were only a few kids out of the class of 24 who could tie their shoes, so if your little one has yet to master the task, they’re not alone. That said, the reason some kids could tie their shoes whereas the others could not had little to do with the child’s competence; it was about whether anyone had ever taken the time to teach them.

How To Teach Kids To Tie Their Shoes

Step 1: Building the dexterity needed for kids to tie their shoes

There are many exercises you can do with kids that will help them develop the fine motor skills and finger dexterity needed to tie their shoes. (If your child is 6 or older, you can probably skip this step.)

• Having them untie a tied pair of shoes is a great way for preschoolers to work on finger dexterity~ Make it a game by challenging them to untie your shoes before you can reach down (in slow motion) to tickle them.

• Have them lace and unlace a new pair of shoes.

• Do activities that involve shoelaces and lacing cards.

• A number of other fine motor activities to work on finger dexterity can be found throughout or website.

Step 2: Modeling the technique & showing kids how to tie their shoes

Most adults these days are in a rush. So when a child’s shoes need tying, it’s all too easy to just quickly bend down and do it for them. What a wasted opportunity. If you can spare yourself another 30 seconds, you can easily turn this into a valuable teaching opportunity.

From now on, whenever a child needs their shoes tied, don’t just do it for them. Model the technique. Sit down behind them or hold the child in your lap so that your hands and fingers are operating from the same angle theirs would be. When you perform the task in front of them, which is what adults typically do, your hands and all the motions are opposite to what theirs would be, which only confuses them. Everything looks backwards.

Your child’s brain is equipped with what are known as mirror neurons: Cell networks that activate in response to what they observe, mimicking the world around them. Each time you have kids watch while you slowly run through the motions and explain the steps, with your hands in the same position as their own hands would be, the mirror neurons in their brain rehearse the movements as if they were doing it themselves. As you repeat this process over and over again, their brain starts to map out a pathway for the motions required, making it easier to do it themselves.

I would recommend modeling the task for them like this at least 20 times before you have them start attempting to tie their shoes on their own. Of course, this is also something you can start doing when kids are much younger. If you simply make a habit of tying their shoes like this when they’re two, they’ll get hundreds of demonstrations in which their brain is running through the motions. They may even start to tie their shoes spontaneously at a very young age.

Step 3: Teaching kids the technique for tying their shoes

There are two different methods of shoe tying, the first the more conventional approach, the second a technique that teachers think kids often have an easier time picking up:

The traditional method

Criss-cross the two laces, tuck one underneath, and with one lace, wrap the other lace around the loop, itself, and pull again. pull. Then make a loop tuck that lace under

The bunny loop

Once again criss-cross the two laces to make an x, tuck one underneath, and then pull. Then tell kids to “make two bunny ears,” making a loop with each lace with plenty of extra left over. Then cross those two loops in an x, tuck one underneath and pull. This method is often easier for kids to learn, because it involves the same criss-crossing motion each time, and the whole idea of “bunny ears” is easy for them to understand.