8 Year Old Son and Tying His Shoes

I just bought my 6 year old a book that he can practice tying on.

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we really had to force the issue with our son, partly by nixing any velcro shoes. Laces only. We also taught him one step at a time and then it was mostly repetition. He first had to learn how to work on his laces so they were snug on his feet and do Step One which was crossing the laces over and under. Step 2 one loop about size of your finger, step 3 wind around, step 4 through the hole and pull. We let him just do one step for a few days and then when he was reasonably able to do that first step, we moved on to 2 etc.

My hubby taught him a diff. method than the one I use and my son prefers it now. Step one is over and under and pull taught (if they are thick laces do over-and-under 2x) step 2 is make a loop. step 3 is make a loop with the opposite shoe lace. step 4 is do the over-and-under step with the loops. again, if you want to double-tie just do over-and-under 2x with the loops.

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Well, I know he has to learn to tie his shoes, but personally......I don't blame him.

I wish I could wear all velcro shoes! So quick to put on, they're awesome! Why aren't we all wearing them? : )

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I am there--or was there til very recently. I have an awesome tip for you that was passed on to me:

What helped was having my son use the belt from his robe to practice.
With the robe on and we also removed the belt and had him tie it around his thigh(s). The belt is bigger, easier to see what's going on when you tie...he got the hang of doing the shoes pretty quickly after the robe belt practice.

Oh! At 8, he has now deemed velcro shoes "uncool" so that was a big part of his motivation! But he still jams his feet into the already-tied sneakers sometimes. Sigh.

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take away the velcro shoes and don't buy him any more - if he only has lace up shoes, he'll have to figure it out :) we are planning to teach our 5 year old before school starts - he is rather unmotivated as well, but he's gonna have to do it. my oldest, now 8, was about 6, maybe close to 7, when he learned - he's on the autism spectrum and VERY uncoordinated or i would have done it much sooner with him!

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We had the exact same problem. I tried to teach my 7.5 year old to tie his shoes but he didn't want to and he just wasn't getting it. He had dress shoes with thick laces and his school shoes had Velcro. I got him a new pair of tennis shoes. They were converse shoes with the long flat laces. He picked out the shoes so he was really excited about them. The long flat laces were just what he needed. Within two days of buying them, he learned to tie his laces. Now he can do the dress shoes too. Maybe getting easier laces to tie could do the trick with your child too.

He may have trouble coordinating his fingers. Give him music lessons and he will develop eye hand coordination.

My 10y is the same way. Our ped. recommended to get 'tie' shoes that he would wear during the weekend and velco shoes for the school week.

My 6 year old ties my 8 year olds shoes. Gotta remember to put that on my list of to do's!

I had to force the issue also and not give him the velcro option. We also took a weekend and practiced it repeatedly until he "got it".

Try buying different laces for the lace-up shoes, some of the "fashion" laces are easier to tie. I wanted to avoid this issue so what I've done with my boys is to not buy them shoes with velcro until they can tie their shoes. My (now) 10 year old got his first set of velcro shoes in first grade. My five year old doesn't have them yet. I do alternate with the older one still in that one pair of shoes will have velcro and then the next pair will have laces because I've found that pretty much the only time they tie bows is on shoes and it is an easy skill to let lapse.

Make each string into a loop and tie the loops together. Granted I was three at the time but that is the first way I tied my shoes. It isn't quite right but it gets the job done.