Does your child wear lace up shoes to school?

[Hulababy]

And can they tie them for themselves?

Has driven me mad this week. So many of our infant school children wearing lace up shoes and trainers to school, and not being able to tie them for themselves.

Soggy laces from the rain - yuk! I hate having to bob down in a wet playground to tie them over and over again. My skirt gets soggy at the back. My hands get soggy and dirty.

I reckon we should ban children from having laces until they can tie them for themselves.

Grrr......

[Half in jest - not really criticising all my mums, dads and pupils - just incase anyone googles me, etc. But half not too..... )

Agree if they always have velcro they will never learn, and also my laces keep coming undone on my ew boots - and I AN tie laces grrrrr.

I HATE velcro, I was a TA and I can't tell you how many shoes got taken off children during carpet time as they sat there crossed legged undoing the velcro........riiiiiiiiiiip, closing it, opening it....riiiiiiiiiiip, stick it to the carpet etc etc etc.

I will get DS lace ups, but i will also spend plenty of time teachin him. I taught myself before I went to school, tying my dads shoes!!

I agree, don't do it yourself, there is always another "helpful" child who will tie someone elses shoes for them

My ds wears laces, he is 4. His feet are too skinny for velcro, they just slip off and I'd rather his shoes fit him properly than worry about whether his teacher could be arsed with tying his laces or not. I hate velcro anyway, it's kind of lazy. I know 12 year olds in velcro who can't tie laces as they've never had to. Shame.

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DS2 wears laces, he is 10 now but has been wearing them since he was about 5 - he taught himself to tie them.

Yes bloss you'd have thought so but despite being able to tie a decent bow she doesn't seem to be able to manage the one more knot on top.

I will try her with them again soon.

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When I updated my last school's uniform policy I included a bit about no laces on footwear unless the child could tie them independently and effectively. My DD has buckled shoes for school and I have no intention of buying up lace-ups until she can tie her own (she's just 5 and it's not something she's that interested in at the moment although she can tie knots!).

my dd had lace up or buckles til she was past the stage of incessantly undoing the velcro! (shoes off in the pushchair) Now we won't have them again until she can tie them. I had twins in a class once who had lace up shoes long before they could tie them. desperate for them to learn to tie them but then they learnt and spent the next goodness knows how long tying and untying them when they should have been listening!!

ew at laces wet with wee!

ds is 10 - he CAN tie laces but is too lazy to, so he is not allowed laceup school shoes til secondary school [mean evil mummy emoticon], think he learnt arounf 8ish?

i di think the other day my god when will the dds learn as they have never had lace ups AFAI can remember...they are 7 and 3, erhaps a leetle soon to be worrying about the 3 year old...

me myself at the grand age of 28 have only one pair of lace ups and the laces are more for ornamental purposes really...

dd1 was about 7 whereas dd2 was 4 ds who has SN was 13 he decided he wanted to have lace up shoes and learnt to tie them in a day,we had stopped buying lace ups a few years earlier as he just took the laces out and threw them away.

I got DS1 (7) lace-up Kickers this year. He was forever coming out of school at the end of the day with his laces undone so I swapped them for elastic laces. Now he can slip his shoes on and off without having to undo/do up the laces.

So I am not actually being that unreasonable then - makes a change, lol!

Serious, I do help them out. I do fasten them, albeit muttering under my breathe. In nicer weather it isn;t so bad but on soggy wet days it is yuk!

TBH it is trainers that is the issue mainly, rather than proper shoes.

I do agree we teach children later - I guess that is because of velcro. I realised a year ago DD didn't know how to tie laces, so I spent a weekend teaching her and she got it - she was just 7y (or maybe almost 7y). She has school trainers (for games, not generally day to day wear) which are lace up, but she does them herself. But it should be a home activity, not really school.

Saying that, my frustration got the better of me. I looked out and found a tie your laces board think DD had and took it into school this morning for children to practise on!!! I am considering ging and buying some more so every class can have one.

cory - if SN obviously it would be different, I promise.

littlebrownmouse - I am prefering to remain naive and believe the wetness is rain!!!

whosinthere - it isn;t that I can't be bothered. It is just it isn;t just one child. The school playground has 270 children in there and more and more of them are wearing trainers with laces and can;t tie them. I don;t like having a wet soggy skirt!

When my two started school, one of the things on the readiness chart was being able to tie their shoe laces.

I wouldn't let them have velcro until they could tie their own laces.

They learnt well before they started school.

Same as I wouldn't let them have digital watches or have digital clocks in the house until they could tell time on analogue clocks and watches.

DGS aged 4 has started school and has been able to tie own laces for ages. Lace up shoes give more support to the ankles than velcro.

DD who has sn taught herself to tie laces by sitting with a lace from the bead box round her stockinged foot whilst watching TV etc. I showed her initially and then she practised constantly.
I remember the whole class being taught to tie laces and blow our noses correctly in the reception class at my infant school 38 years ago. Everyone could do both proficiently by the end of the year.
Yet, in my school, there are year 6 boys who still can't tie laces... I refuse to do it for them after yr 2 but promise rewards for those who have learned by the following week.

My son is three and has lace up shoes. This is so by the time he goes to school he will be able to do them up himself. He can do the first stage already. Teachers have enough to do and dressing is a task for parents to teach.

As an aside, I had to help a yr 1 child yesterday put her tights on. Not wooly -keep your legs warm- tights but thin nylon -hole as soon as you look at them, grown up style- ones. The poor love had no chance of putting them on straight and there were already holes just about everywhere

Actually at our school laced shoes are banned until they can tie them themselves. Unfortunately you then end up with 7,8,9 year olds who can't tie laces!

My dd could tie her shoe laces before she started playgroup (3) and she has taught and helped her classmates ever since

ds(8) can do them, not very tight though! we spent a day practising.

we learnt at school - i remember using those little cards. i guess schools just don't have time now due to sats etc.

I think I'll have to send DD away to her grandparents for a week to learn to tie laces ... DH and I are liable to come to blows over it otherwise. I have a brilliant method of tying a bow which doesn't come undone accidentally, but can be undone intentionally in exactly the same way as a normal bow. He however is the only person in the world who invariably makes a horrible knot when untying one of my special bows; meanwhile he does 'double bows' which no normal person can undo without breaking a nail and swearing a lot.

laces on childrens r awful!! think they should wait till they r 16 years old and can do them themselves
velcro much cooler and easier