What age for tieing shoe laces?

[Claire2009]

What age do children learn to tie shoe laces?

DS has very poor fine motor skills, but very, very big feet, so he needed to learn to tie laces before going into Year 3.

He managed it, but it took weeks of practice over the summer to achieve.

DD, who has much better fine motor skills and needed to tie her own Tap dancing shoes, probably learned mid-Year 2.

Dd was 5yrs when she learned to tie hers. She came home from school one day and said her friend had taught her.

Ds1 was 11yrs. He has poor fine motor skills and it took a while.

Ds2 is 9yrs and has no interest in learning how to.

My DS's have had no need to learn yet. They are 8 and 4.

DS, age 9, fine motor skills not great can tie shoe laces if the laces are fairly long but finds it hard to pull them tight enough so that the laces stay tied ! Next pair of shoes will be lace up as opposed to velcro as I think it will come with practice but I suspect the laces will remain tied and shoes will be slipped on and off when I'm not there to moan !

Mine picked it up more or less straight away when they needed to do it. Given they were in Velcro school shoes and trainers, I think it came with the first pair of Converse - so between 6-8 years.

I can remember learning in my first week at infants school (pre-Velcro, and I'd have been rising 5).

My dd learnt age 5 again for tap shoes. Without the dancing I don't think she would know yet.

DD 7, DS 8 when he went into trainers sizes that had laces and not velcro. He's still quite slow at doing them. I watched a 12 year old offering her foot to her mother the other morning to have her laces tied. Apparently she's never learnt, so never too late.

Ds1 aged 8 ties himself in knots, and hasn't managed a proper bow yet. I spend hours unpicking laces....

I think my DD was just about 6 when she learnt. She had some summer pumps with bright laces and she practised for a couple of hours solidly after she was shown half a dozen times.

I think that it is a skill every child should learn even though there is a glut of shoes that only have velcro!

As soon as you possibly can, is my answer as a TA. As a mum, I know it just doesn't happen like that, as my youngest took till he was about 11! My daughter could do hers at 6.

Thanks all, I just wondered what was the 'norm'.

DD taught herself (friend at school showed he) just after her 5th birthday. She is 6 now and ties up my friends 10yr old laces every so often

DS is 5.5 and no interest whatsoever, however.... he does enjoy pulling them out all the bloody time!!!

There is no norm. As an ex teacher I have taught in Reception, KS1 and KS2. I had reception children who could tie their laces and KS2 who couldn't and everything in between.

Most children wear velcro shoes so it wasn't often a problem but I guess that just delays learning to tie laces. Unless children have fine motor difficulties then most should be able to learn by the end of y2 in my opinion but children need to practice.

On a personal note I leant to tie my laces when I was 4-5 apparently and my brother was about 11. My parents said I taught my older brother how to tie his!

One thing I did hate when teaching was tieing laces as they always seemed to be wet. I hated to think what was on them on a dry day! Anti bacterial gel anyone?