How to Get a Toddler to Tie Shoes

Learning to tie shoes can be difficult for children, especially toddlers, to understand. As long as you have the patience and the understanding, it can actually be quite rewarding. This article will show you how to teach your toddler to tie shoes all by herself.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Adult shoe

1. Grab an adult sized shoe with longer laces. They shouldn't be extremely long, but they definitely shouldn't be too short. The adult shoe helps the toddler tie shoes better because everything is a bit bigger, easier to see, and easier for finger dexterity.

2. Sit your child on your lap and begin to tie shoes by yourself in front of your toddler. Tie them over and over again. Each time, ask her to untie them for you. This will get her fingers used to the strings and will improve her dexterity.

3. Begin verbalizing each step when you tie shoes. For instance, "Make an X, do a somersault, pull tight, make a bunny ear, run around the bunny, go through the hole, pull tight."

4. Do this over and over until you think your toddler knows the steps to tie shoes. Then, ask him to say the steps while you perform them. This way the steps are drilled into his head, but his fingers don't have to do the actions quite yet.

5. Let your toddler do a few steps. Have her "pull tight", or make the bunny ears. These are always fun steps. Once your child has mastered a few steps on her own and knows them all by heart, have her do the whole process on her own.

Tips & Warnings

• You may have to take a break between each step. Toddlers don't have the best attention span. Don't make it seem like you're training him to tie shoes. Instead, take an hour break, or even a day's break in between each step.

[pgodbo43]

on 12/22/2008 I love this tip.....one question; How old should the toddler be? Not sure what age to start teaching my son to tie his shoes. He's 21 months now. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

[nanapenn]

on 12/18/2008 The VERY BEST tip I have learned is to have the child use a length of rope to learn to tie. Some have not yet developed fine motor skills, and the thicker rope does the trick. Once they have mastered this, it is a easy transition to the thinner laces.

[momaloy]

on 11/26/2008 Great tips. I can't think of a way to break it down into smaller steps. This is the perfect way to teach a toddler.

[Creativehearts1]

on 11/20/2008 Good tips. This lesson gets put off more and more these days with all of the velcro shoes out there!