I was visiting my sister and her family, including her 12 year old 7th grade son named Joey. At one point I asked if a pair of shoes belonged to Joey, she glanced at them and said, “No, couldn’t be, he only wears velcro shoes since he doesn’t know how to tie his shoes.” Really, at 12? Half-way through middle school?
So I asked him if he wanted me to show him how and he seemed eager to learn. Within 5 minutes Joey had learned the loop method, the bunny-ears method and how to double knot.
I have 4 kids and they all could tie their shoes by kindergarten, so the whole idea of a kid not knowing such a basic skill blows me away. Were they planning to send Joey off to college without knowing how to tie his own shoes?
I once worked at a grade school in a very wealthy area. Usually both parents worked very long hours, and there were more than a few kids whose parents were always in a hurry and always rushing out the door. some of them didn’t learn to tie their shoes until 2nd grade because their parents would just always do it for them in order to get out the door quicker (I would tell them to go home and ask to spend the weekend practicing). One kid was 10 and his babysitter figured out the problem and taught him.
In the first month of college, I taught my neighbors how to do their laundry, how to shuck corn, and how many sweatshirts are necessary to wear when it’s forty degrees out. (Hint: the answer is less than two.)
You know, I think I was pretty old when I finally learned to tie my shoes. Don’t think it was as old as 12, but I recall insisting on velcro shoes till 3rd or 4th grade. And its not like my parents were lazy or anything, they were pretty insistent on teaching me to read and ride a bike and stuff, and I was otherwise pretty normal. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t feeling shoe tying, and my parents decided not to press it.
Till one day I distinctly remember randomly deciding I wanted to learn, had my grandmother show me and having it mastered in about five minutes.
Now people pay me to sit around and think about things, so I don’t think learning to tie my shoes a little late in life held me back or made me a retard or kept me out of a good college or anything.
Of course, I don’t know your sister, and maybe she really is an awful parent. But kids are weird, and sometimes even otherwise very intellectually curious ones put their foot down about some random thing until one day they are old enough to see why its an important thing to figure out (or their friends start making fun of them for not understanding it), and then motivate themselves to learn it.
I didn’t learn till I was about 7. I remember a day at school where we were all supposed to learn, and the teacher just overlooked me because she figured I already knew. I was shy, so didn’t say anything.
My Mum tied my shoes every morning, and that was good enough, until I realised I ought to know these kinds of things, so I finally just asked for her to show me (until then it was mystifyingly hidden behind her hands, so I couldn’t figure it out on my own).
Anyway, she showed me, I got it figured first or second try, and that was that. Age seven is pretty late, though, and I’m kind of embarrassed about that.
My son will be 13 on Tuesday, and he can’t tie his shoes. That’s because he has a disability that involves his hands. But if you just saw us as you were walking by, me tying his shoes for him, I guess you’d think I was just a bad, lazy parent. One of my friends brought it up the other day, all, 'I can’t believe you can’t tie your shoes!" to him, and I had to remind them that he gets a check from the government for *a reason. *
There are only about 5 memories I retain from kindergarten (5 +/- years for those keeping track). One of those is the teacher teaching us to tie our shoes over and over again.
I was a late learner of the lace tying. Not as late as 12, but I was about to start the second grade when I finally learned.
My parents had long given up on me. If it hadn’t been for my twin sister, who had learned a good two or three years before I did, I would still be stuffing my laces into my shoes!
I also had a hard time differentiating the left shoe from the right shoe, zipping up my coat, riding a bike, braiding my hair, or even holding my pencil the “right” way (which I still don’t do, but it’s because I’m incorrigible now). I suspect it wasn’t that I was lazy or dumb, but that my fine motor skills weren’t finely developed until I hit about eight years old.
Though it is weird that the kid learned so fast when you intervened, Palo Verde. Maybe you’re like the Anne Sullivan for people who can’t tie their shoes!
I only started tying my shoes around 12 too. I’ve always had problems with coordination (my school had me work with a physical therapist in middle school); I still am pretty clumsy with jumping rope and riding a bike. Then again since zip shoes were easy to find in the 80s I never had to have anyone tie my shoes.
My kids came along with the advent of digital clocks. They all did fine with learning how to tell time with an analog, except for my daughter. She was still having trouble with it when she left home at 18 and I’m not sure she’s mastered it yet at 38.
Round laces are terrible about coming loose. This is a good fix.
I must have learned in kindergarten, because the babysitter I learned from stopped watching me not long after that, but I can’t do it the way most people do. Some people look at me funny because I do it bunny ears style.
For years, I tied my shoes “backwards,” because my father was facing me when he taught me how. To this day, I sometimes have to stop and concentrate to decide which hand makes the loop and which circles the loop. (Yes, it does seem to matter, because the laces don’t stay tied as well when done the mirror image way.)
(Forty degrees is