How to Teach Your Child to Tie Shoe Laces

Children as toddlers, are solely dependent on their parents for routine activities but as they grow up, they become more and more independent and learn to perform the activities like brushing their teeth, eating, wearing clothes on their own. Tying shoe laces is one of the activities that hints you and tells you that your child has mastered all the basic skills.

To tie laces is difficult for children, so when that is achieved, the child is supposed to be ready to move into kindergarten. However, to teach a child to tie her shoes is a difficult task for the parents. It requires lots of patience and efforts. You will have to invent some creative ideas to make the task likable to your child.

There is a high possibility of children getting frustrated looking at the difficult method and they might leave it in between and run away. To avoid this follow the tips suggested in the following part of the article.

• As it is already said, the child might just find the activity very difficult, boring and so does not want to do it. You should be patient and wait till your child is mentally and physically ready for the task. When we compare the learning rate among girls and boys, girls learn faster than boys and they are pretty enthusiastic throughout the activity.

• Child's fingers and muscles are small and not yet developed completely. To make the grip easier for the child it is always better to give her bigger things to practice on. In this activity as well, you can tie the shoelace on the child's thigh. 

Since, we cannot change the size of the lace, tying it on the thigh will give her a proper surface to practice and also a comfortable position. Once the child is done with tying the knots you can make her tie the lace on the shoe.

• Using rhythm is the best idea to get your child involved in the activity. There are many nursery rhymes on shoe tying like, the Bunny Hole rhyme. You can play the song or you can also recite it for the child while practicing the steps according to the instructions in the song. Children will enjoy the rhyme and also learn to tie the shoe laces.

• Other method would be teaching the steps one by one and repeating it until the child gets a hang of it.
• Remember when you are adopting this method the child should be familiar with the concept of right and left and must know the alphabets well.

• The first knot is easier to tie. Teach your child the first knot and let her repeat it. Do this till you are sure that she has grasped it well. Children tend to remember what they are taught only for a while and forget when they do it the next time.

• When the first knot is practiced well teach the child to make two loops at a time. Initially she will struggle to hold the loop and they will also be unequal. Let the loops be as they are because, if you keep correcting her often, there are possibilities of the child getting irritated and losing concentration.

• When the child learns to make loops, guide her in making the "X" alphabet by placing one loop across the other and inserting one into the other forming two bunny ears.
• Then teach the child to pull the ears to fix them tight and tell her that if you don't fix them, they will fall off.

• Select one method of tying shoes and be consistent in the practice session to have better results.
• Give rewards or just praise the child for achieving success as it will motivate her to learn more.
• Do not ever hit or yell at your child if she is not able to do it. It will only scare the child and demotivate her.

• While practicing, you and the child should be side by side and not opposite to each other. It will be easier for the child to follow the steps than trying to grasp the mirror images.
• Once the child learns to tie shoe laces, you can teach her to lace shoes in various styles as well.

Although, there is a huge variety of children shoes in the market like the zip-ups, velcro shoes, etc., people still want their children to learn to tie shoe laces and at least for the childhood years they buy the shoes with laces. If you also want your child to learn to tie shoe laces faster and properly, follow the above-listed guidelines and make the activity enjoyable for the child.