Thing shoelaces reliably, what age?

[GiraffeCup]

I was just wondering what age kids "should" be able to tie their shoelaces?

Don't tell me your 15 months old could do this behind their back. Realistic answers please 🥺

I taught my four in reception. I thought they probably needed to know for school, not sure why!

My left handed son struggled ( or I struggled to teach him) until we learnt the bunny ear method when he was about 7. He still uses that in his twenties.

Absolutely! I teach French and when trying to teach them to tell the time in French at about 8-10 years old there are quite a few who aren't very confident at it in English. My daughter struggled with it for years into secondary school.

Re laces, obviously younger children can be taught to do it but the age would vary greatly depending on how much practice they get and their hand eye coordination. And even if they can do it they probably can't do it properly tightly. Realistically it's easy to buy velcro shoes for younger kids. If your kid can't tie laces for god sake don't buy them lace up school shoes as the TA /teacher will hate you.

My teens can all do laces but even now not that tightly and they always choose non lace up shoes if they can. Or they get elastic laces (you can get smart looking black ones with no toggle on Amazon as well as the trainer sort with a toggle). They can't be bothered with the faff. It's hardly a lifeskill, there are plenty of other options.

My youngest could do it before he started school - so probably around 4yrs 8months. My eldest was already at school before they got the hang of it - maybe 5 and a half or thereabouts. Whenever I helped out at school, there were a good number of lower KS2 pupils who couldn’t tie their shoes - age 7-8. In fact, when DS started high school which had quite a strict shoe policy requiring lace-ups, there were a fair few 11 year olds who struggled to tie theirs initially. But this was more because they’d never needed to due to wearing Velcro previously. Most 5 year olds could tie laces if taught and given the chance to practice.

Reliably - once they're regularly wearing shoes with laces. My 9 year old started doing laces at 7 but only really got shoes with laces at 8.5. DS6 will probably need to start learning soon as he's already a 13 and you start getting more lace options around that size - DD was a problem as velcro was getting fluffy sitting at school but we had to hunt for shoes in her size with laces...

Mine were 5 and had lace up shoes to start year 1.
They weren't always the best knots at the beginning of the year so I often retied them but they'd got the hang of it by the end of the first term.

Middle child was 4 as he had very narrow feet and had to have lace up shoes when he started school. I don’t think DC 1 could do them until they had hockey boots at about 8 and similarly DC3

For any races, I always help tie DD's laces too as the stakes are higher.