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What age should a child be able to tie their laces and tell the time

55 replies

Littleduckeggblue · 18/08/2019 13:58

My DSD is almost 10 years old. She still can't tell the time or tie her shoe laces. I bought her activity books on telling the time last year and she seemed to be getting the hang of it. My DH has also tried and tried to teach her to tie her laces.
What age were your children when they could do this? I seem to remember being able to do this from a much younger age. The same as riding a bike, she has only just got the hang of it the last few months after trying and failing for the last few years. I remember as a child playing out on my bike at such a young age!
I don't want to push her and nag her about it as that's her mother and fathers job.

OP posts:
wendz86 · 18/08/2019 17:00

My eldest daughter was about 7 for laces and 6/7 for the time.

Graphista · 18/08/2019 18:29

Very much depends on the child it varies greatly. I've been a nanny and childminder and seen great variation on this type of skill.

There's also the possibility of a condition causing difficulties.

At this age my dd still couldn't tie laces, cycle or swim but could tell time.

The time I think was more due to exposure (I've a bit of a thing for clocks so there were a few in our home, plus she was a bugger for being an early riser so quite early on I trained her to not wake me until clock showed X time with y hands in what positions)

She was still undx at this age (though I knew something was wrong I couldn't get Drs to take us seriously) a couple years later she was DX with eds and I learnt that was probably why she struggled with certain physical tasks. She lacks co-ordination, her limbs don't always do what she intends them to do, and anything that involves rotating any joint often results in dislocation. She has found a very odd way of eg tying laces that reduces how much she turns her wrists but looks a bit strange. She also now uses elasticated laces so she only has to tie them once on new shoes and basically uses them like slip ons thereafter.

Her balance isn't great so cycling she struggles turning right and has to pick up speed quickly to stay stable.

Mindees have had various reasons why they've struggled with such tasks until getting a DX or loads and loads of practice has allowed them to find their own method.

Most common reasons of course are sight and hearing impairments - slight ones can affect tasks like these, but otherwise are having too subtle an effect to be noticeable.

Then things like dyspraxia which certainly when I was caring for these children, wasn't very well known or recognised and I suspect very under DX.

It may even be something temporary like a blocked ear from a cold occurring around the same time as you're trying to teach them to cycle.

There are also social factors

My mother never learned to swim until her 50's, a combination of not having money to go to the pool and being put off by being thrown in a river by some arseholes as a kid. She was terrified. She was very brave I think in going for individual lessons to learn at this age for the sake of her grandkids. She also cannot ride a bike as she has partial hearing loss in one ear of a type that several affects her balance. Even just being tired can make her "list" to the side of her "good" ear she'd be a liability on a bike!

My sister is fully deaf in one ear and took ages to learn to cycle and other activities involving co-ordination/balance.

My brother I suspect is undx hypermobile if not eds and was very accident prone growing up and to an extent still is! But it's hard to know how much of that is a possible condition and how much his daredevil personality as he's always been adventurous with physical activity and still is. He's a police officer which requires a level of fitness particularly his role, plus he loves motorbikes, abseiling, skydiving etc how my mother copes with the worry I don't know! Would drive me nuts if a child of mine was such a risk taker!

Sparklemummyx0x0x · 18/08/2019 22:00

My 9 year old only learned to tie laces this year, only because all his trainers/shoes have had Velcro so never needed to. His dad insisted on lace ones this time so he's had no choice and has slowly learned.
Riding a bike probably at 7. I've never had a bike since I was a teen so wasn't something I bothered with. It was his dad that taught him.
Telling the time took longer and I think he got it last year.
However he seems to like correcting me. If it says 11.13 ish on the wall clock, obviously we would just say 'quarter past'...but nooo it's isn't. It's not 'quarter past' yet. I try to tell him it's just what we say to the nearest 5mins but he can't understand that part yet.

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AlpacaGoodnight · 18/08/2019 23:07

6 for both! She was struggling with our explanation for laces so we tried a youtube video, 10 minutes later as she could do it no problem!

AlpacaGoodnight · 18/08/2019 23:09

Should say we hadn't focused on either skill before 6. It's not unusual for children to struggle with these skills.

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