Lace up shoes for boys

[wedontneedno]

My DS is 7 and still in Velcro shoes. What age is a good age for lace up shoes and when should they be able to tie them? He has no SN if that makes a difference.

With no SN he would be capable of laceups now if you taught him.
However I would say at primary there probably is no benefit to moving from velcro.
Normally you can tell the age expected as the choice in velcro in the required size decreases and the choice of lace up increases.

The advantage of moving from velcro before they leave primary is that they will probably actually learn to tie the laces. At 7 it's a skill they can be proud of mastering. If they can't do it by the time they get to secondary, some will just not bother.
(I was also glad DD had learned to do laces before I injured my hand and couldn't tie my own!)

My ds & dd both had tiny feet so it was impossible to even find lace up shoes in his size until he was in Year 8. Ds learnt to tie his laces on football boots and dd on tap shoes (ds later took up tap in case you think that is stereotyping.)

My DDs (motor skills issues) both learned to tie laces on jazz shoes and ice skates, and avoided lace ups for school until y10.

Currently teaching Cubs knots. (Aged 8-10). Some get it straight away, some plug away for weeks.

(And when they've got their hiking boots on we have a queue waiting to have their laces tied as they can do it, but not tight enough to stay put!)

We kept ours in velcro for primary school but practised on trainers at home. At home they had more time to do them before going out whereas primary is a bit more time pressured.

At secondary their trainers and football boots both had elastic laces with a pull tab to tighten them as when they come undone and are filthy dirty plus cold hands makes it hard to re-tie. Lots of athletes have pre-tied laces.