Shoelace tying is a genuinely fiddly fine motor skill, and most children need more practice attempts than parents expect before it clicks. A few adjustments make it click faster.
The bunny ears method
The easiest method to teach for most young children:
- Cross the laces and make one simple knot, like starting to tie a normal knot
- Make a loop ("bunny ear") with each lace
- Cross the two loops over each other, just like the first step but with loops instead of the lace ends
- Tuck one loop through the gap and pull both loops to tighten
It's mechanically the same as an adult's tie, just using two loops instead of one loop and one end — which is much easier for small hands to track.
Practice off the foot first
Trying to tie a shoe while it's on their own foot, upside down from their perspective and awkward to reach, adds difficulty that has nothing to do with the actual skill. Practising on a shoe on a table, facing them the right way up, removes that extra layer and speeds things up a lot.
Bigger laces help at first
Thicker, longer laces (or even a shoelace-tying practice board, if you want one) are easier to grip and see than the thin laces on a real school shoe. Once the motion is solid, transferring it to normal laces is a small step.
Expect a lot of repetition
This is a skill that tends to need dozens of attempts, spread over weeks, not one sitting — short, low-pressure practice sessions work far better than one long frustrated one. It's completely normal for it to click well after starting school, long after most of Reception has moved on to velcro anyway.
Building the underlying hand strength
If shoelace tying is proving especially tricky, it's often a fine motor strength issue rather than not understanding the steps. Our fine motor skills activities post and Art, Craft & Fine Motor category both help build the hand strength that makes fiddly tasks like this easier.
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