- Hey, moms and dads, my name's Emma.
I'm a pediatric occupational therapist
and mom to two gorgeous children.
(bright music)
As an OT, there's a few secret tricks
that we use when we're teaching children
how to tie shoelaces, which makes it super easy,
and most parents don't know these tricks.
So make sure you stay tuned to hear them.
And also you'll learn which shoelace tying technique I use.
Because it has most success for the child,
and the parents are actually able to teach it.
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So what are these secret tips that we use
when teaching children to tie their shoelaces?
The very first one is getting shoelaces.
So threading your child's shoes
with shoelaces that are different colors.
So a black and a pink one
or just a black and a white shoelace.
Now, you can see on this shoe,
there's white laces on a white shoe.
So it makes it really difficult
to actually see the laces when you're tying.
So having two different high-contrast shoelaces
makes it significantly easier for your child.
And also, it helps when you're giving instructions.
Because you say, "Put the black lace over the pink lace
and go round and pull tight."
Whereas if they were the same colored laces,
"put the white lace over the white lace
and go around and pull tight."
Which is really confusing for a child,
who's learning to tie shoelaces.
The next tip that we always recommend
is to actually practice tying shoelaces on a table,
not on your child's foot.
When your child's got their shoe on their feet,
their knee actually gets in the way of them
being able to see what they're doing with their hands.
And when you're learning to tie shoelaces,
you learn by watching what you're doing.
And then as you become more proficient in it,
it becomes an automatic motor pattern,
so you don't even need to look.
But your child is going to be using their eyesight a lot
to work out how to tie their shoelaces.
So on the table is a way better option,
because then their knee's not getting in the road,
and they can directly see the shoe.
When the shoes on the table
you want it to be facing the way it would be on their foot.
So away from them, you don't want it facing this way
because it changes what the role
of the hand is when they're tying the shoelace.
So you want it to be facing always
in the direction as if it would be on their foot.
The next thing we want to do
is to make sure the shoe doesn't move around
when your child's trying to tie their shoe laces.
So what I generally recommend
is just putting like a heavy rock
or a few rocks inside the shoe,
'cause it means that it won't move around,
and then it's more stable,
and your child can work
on the actual skill of tying the laces
rather than being cautious about not moving the shoe
when they're tying the laces.
And when you're tying shoelaces,
you want to have really long laces.
And that ensures
that when your child's learning to tie their shoe laces
and they're doing that loop method or any kind of method,
their long laces are going to be long enough
that when they pull it tight
it's not going to come through.
If they have really short laces, then they're accidentally
going to pull the lace completely through
which you can't do these ones because they're so long,
but that means that they're not going to get success.
And they're going to be likely
to stop practicing tying their shoelaces.
So we want your child or any children
to be really successful in tying their shoelaces
the first time that they do it.
So long laces ensures
that it's not going to accidentally slip through
and the lace will come completely undone.
Now, one of the secret tips with this
is when you're tying shoelaces
we get the children to do that first loop.
So go cross them over, go under,
and then you want them to go under again and pull tight.
And that just means that when they're pulled tight,
the lace isn't going to come undone,
which is what does happen if they only do one loop through.
So if they did just cross over and through and pull tight,
you'll see it's really easy to undo the,
becomes loose over time,
which is really, really frustrating.
Because for your child
when they're learning to tie shoelaces,
when that becomes loose,
then the whole shoe becomes loose on their foot.
So we want it to be quite tight,
and then they don't have to worry about
keeping the laces tight when they're doing it.
They can just relax and then do the steps one by one
and have the laces hanging down.
So that double loop in the beginning is amazing.
Obviously, when you're learning to tie shoelaces,
I would always recommend that you do it with your child
in the afternoons or on the weekends
when you're not really stressed or rushing to try
and get out the door in the mornings before school.
So if you can do it at that time,
you're going to be more patient with your child
when they're learning to tie shoelaces,
and also your child won't be stressed themselves,
and you won't be stressed.
So wouldn't be trying to rush that task,
and you have time to focus in on that activity.
So do it in the afternoons
or on the weekends when you have more time.
The next thing is when you're teaching how to tie shoelaces,
we would always use the same words over and over
for each individual step.
And I would try and make sure that it's consistent
between the people who are teaching the child.
And that might mean writing it down.
This leads me onto my next tip,
is that you both need to be consistent.
If multiple people are teaching the child
how to tie shoelaces, you need to agree on a method.
So as an OT, throughout my 10 years of practice,
I actually recommend that we, any child,
uses the one loop method.
The two loop method is really fidgety with their hands,
requires a lot more dexterity,
which most children find difficult, that I'm seeing.
So the one loop method is the easiest for the child,
but most importantly, it's the method that parents know.
So there are four different ways of tying shoelaces,
but honestly I can never get the parents
to remember the other two ways.
So the one loop method is a lot easier.
So this is how I would teach the one loop method.
And that is simply by picking up the laces.
And I would tell them to cross the lace over and make an X.
And then we go through the big hole
with the black loop go over the top
through the big hole and we pull tight.
Then I would lay the laces flat.
And I would say, "Now we pinch it with your left hand,
and then you bring it together
and make a loop, a big bunny ear,
and we make sure we have a long tail."
So that's really important
because we want them to have a long tail
so that when they pull it tight,
it's not going to come loose.
So we make sure it has a long tail.
And then I say,
"Put the pink load loop over the top and let go."
And then I often say, "Can you see that big hole?
That big black hole, we swap hands,
and we put the pink loop all the way through the hole.
And then we pull tight."
If you're doing it with the child
I would generally have a shoe beside the child.
And I would do each individual step.
Generally, I would also get in on it.
So I would provide hand over hand assistance with the child.
So I would help them do that,
those each individual steps,
and I would give them kind of physical prompts.
So I might say, "Pinch here."
And then they would bring their finger in,
and they would pinch.
And then we could do it that way.
Now when you have a child who gets really frustrated
when they're learning to tie their shoelaces,
or just generally is really quick to give up
when learning a new activity,
you can use the technique which we often use,
called backward chaining.
And that is where you do every single step,
except the last step which your child does.
So in shoelace tying, you would go through it.
So we put the black place over the top.
We create an X.
We go through the hole, back over, through and pull tight.
Then we make one bunny ear with a long tail.
And then we put the pink one over the top,
let go, swap hands, put the pink loop through,
and this is every single step you're so far you're doing.
Now at this point, you would stop,
and you would get your child to grab the pink loop.
And then the back loop, black loop and pull tight.
And that means that your child gets success
when they're tying shoelaces
because they tied, did the last step by themselves.
They were able to tie the shoelace
and then you do the big hurrah,
(children cheering)
and your child is quite happy about that.
So you keep doing that,
and then you would start to do it
so that you do every single step
except the last two steps,
which is what your child does.
So, and they get that success every single time.
So they're more willing to give that activity a go
and to learn the skill.
So that's it, moms and dads.
Those are the secret tips that OTs use
to make it super easy to teach any child
how to learn to tie their shoelaces.
Thanks for watching.
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(bright music)