United Brachial Plexus Network, Inc.

Any advice on how to tie shoes? My daughter is 4 with no left hand movement. Any advice on how to tie one handed?

At 4 yrs old it will be tough... but they have these neat twist laces that you just have to pull to tighten and they come in all sorts of colours. There is always velcro too.
I taught pre-k (4 yr olds) and frankly NONE of then had lace-up shoes (they were all non-bpi kids). They all had velcro or slip ons...

here is the post about Y ties...
http://ubpn.org/messageboard/thread ... 485#145485

Marieke (31, LOBPI)

Yeah, my 4 year old (not the BPI) does not tie shoes and he does all the other dressing things independently. It's a good question to start thinking about though so I'd like to hear what parents of older kids have to say.

My son is 8 1/2 and started to tie at 4 1/2 !! Number 1, he was the youngest of four, number two he had an awesome preschool teacher who refused to let him say he couldn't do it. She aske me to look up one handed tying on this sight, I did and by the time I printed it and took it to her, she laughed and said" NEVER MIND, he knows how to," he leaned over to show mommy how he tied his shoes, I cannot explain though, someone here will post the one handed tying instuctions. My advise as a parent, if you think your child can tie one handed then they will. I never ever bought Brandon shoes with VELCRO or slip ons !!!! It wasn't something I did !!! His brother and sisters didn't wear the and I Knew that he wouldn't want that. I "FORCED" the issue.....In kindergarten though, he tried to tell the teacher he couldn't tie, and since most of the kids didn't know how to tie, she let it go, until one day, it slipped. He never got away with ot tying anymore.

I know that the one thing the preschool teacher did was teach him on his shoe when it was OFF!!!!! Good Luck with one handed tying. GAYLE

My son is 6 yrs old and I haven't even bothered to try and teach him how to tie his shoes. I think shoe tying is over rated these days with all the new shoes we have out it is somewhat unnecessary. My daughter learned to tie at about 4 or 5 but wasn't able to tie them tight enough to keep them tied until she was 8 or 9 so I just started getting her velcro or something else. It works fine for us. I am sure some day we will teach him to tie but I don't think it is the end all be all of the preschool or kindergarten life if a child doesn't. Once upon a time it was but now a day not so much in my opinion.

I was able to learn to tie my shoes using elastic laces. I was also in 4th grade. Tieing was very hard for me mostly because of my hand and wrist not being strong enough. The elastic laces stretched a lot so I could manage.

Good luck!
Amy 20 years old ROBPI from MN

http://www.fieggen.com/shoelace/index.htm

Ian has some info about tying one handed and about no-tie lacing.