Shoe Tying in the Age of Velcro

How do you encourage your child to learn such a basic skill as tying his shoes when he is surrounded with less challenging solutions?

How were we to know that when Mr. de Mestral discovered and introduced Velcro to the world; we would be facing new challenges in teaching our children?

I recall which seemed excruciatingly long days in kindergarten practicing how to button items and especially tying my shoes. I was not taught any cute rhyme to help me remember how and in what order this was done. Sheer repetition of the task was the way to teach a new skill back then. I seem to recall finding this challenge to be the worst ever until it suddenly just happened and I no longer struggled.

In our modern, improved world, my son did not fully master this task until he was in first grade. I chose his shoes according to size, comfort, style and lastly price. I was not real concerned about whether they had laces or Velcro. And as long as he was willing to wear them I was happy. He chose his first pair of shoes with laces on a shopping trip with Grandma. He had been asking for days to go to the local skate shop as he wanted to be the next Tony Hawk. He came home very proud of his new shoes that he claimed would allow him to do all sort of skating tricks.

Had he known that the first trick he would have to master was lacing them, he might have settle for a pair of loafers instead. In the end repetition again did the trick and he learned lacing in a few short weeks.

Did you come up with a successful fast method? We would love for you to send it to us so that we could pass it along to other parents facing this “technology” driven challenge.