At what age can children tie their own laces?

Hi All,

Just wondering when children can tie their own shoe laces. Obviously it depends on each child etc etc, but just curious. x

ds is 10 and still struggles

dd2 taught herself at 7 because she had some baseball boots (they also had a zip) and she just sat for a whole afternoon undoing and doing them over and over!

DD1 struggled until she was over 10

I don't know if it the same experience for everyone but my own children were quite late tying shoe laces due to having Velcro shoes all the way through school. I think they were both around 7yrs old by the time they came out of PE plimsols and into a trainer.

You tend not to see many shoes with laces nowadays and as children get older they like to put their laces inside their shoes. I have an 8yr old mindee who has just mastered the tying.

Practise makes perfect but children aren't getting the opportunities with all the Velcro shoes anymore

My 9 year old still can't !!

My dd was about 5 I think poss 6

My daughter was five when she mastered it because the shoes she wanted for school were lace up and we said if she had them she had to learn to do them herself because the teacher wouldn't have time to help her!

Most year 5's can tie their own shoe laces.
Below that year group it is usually a mixture, it really depends on their experiences: girls rarely have laces in their shoes, but are able to do up their trainers earlier, boys who have velcro again don't get the opportunity - the fashion is just to tuck trainer laces in so even then they don't get much practise.
But year 5 and 6 it is rare that laces cannot be tied.....whether they stay done up though.....

All 3 of mine were 5 when they could do their shoelaces. They wanted a pair of shoes with laces and I said not until you can do your laces. That was all the incentive they needed.

I was 6.

My dad got a block of wood, about the size of a tub of sml butter, and he put a single shoe lace across it with a nail in the middle. I practiced tying a bow on there first, and then tying my own shoes laces. I remember it being so easy after I could tie a bow on the wooden block!

My eldest was 7...cos I was fed up doing astro trainers up lol...
My middle son was 7 also...my youngest is now 5 and is desperate to be able to tie laces!! Hopefully it won't take too long!

Sarah x

My daughter did it the week before she turned 5 because she wanted to learn , other daughter now 6 and not interested in doing it and no need to learn yet I think

My nearly eight year old cannot.

Wow, it's all really interesting! My DD, 5, is desperate to learn to tie them but she gets so frustrated and angry that I almost want to distract her from trying until she is a bit older!

My 9 year old now can :)

I have just managed to encourage an 8 yr old who has learning difficulties.

I set him a challenge, if he could tie the laces in the book i have 5 times then he could move on to his trainers. Once he had tied the laces up on his trainers 5 times with it in his lap he needed to do it twice on his foot. He could then make a loom band lol. That was all the encouragement it took.

I noticed asda have a book you can buy with a practice lace in it to get them started.

This is quite a good way to teach them.

Ian's Shoelace Site - Ian Knot, Ian's Fast Shoelace Knot

This is an interesting thread.
One of my nephews who is 8 asked me how to do them a couple of weeks ago and we sat practising. He said "Daddy showed me how to do it but I forgot again and I want daddy to think I remember because we did it for ages until I knew it".
So we sat and practised for a while (me on my boots and him on his shoes) and then he got it again and was so proud and happy with his little self.
He would stop and untie them and tie them again in the middle of playing as if he was making sure he hadn't forgot already:laughing:
I thought it was cute that he appreciated daddy taking the time to help.

I also noticed when we practised that daddy ties them totally different to me.
He gets the two loops and ties them together, I get one loop, wrap the other around and pull it through to become another loop and tie.
My kids dad ties like daddy above and so do my son's yet my daughter ties them like me.