Shoe Tying Help: 8 Strategies That Actually Work

By Bobby Morong | Special Education & Adapted PE Teacher | Inventor of Training Ties

If you're searching for shoe tying help, you've probably tried the standard method, watched the YouTube videos, used the rhymes, and watched your kid melt down at step 4. You're not failing. The method is failing you both.

In 20 years as a special education teacher, I watched hundreds of kids struggle with shoe tying — not because they couldn't do it, but because the standard "Bunny Ears" and "Loop, Swoop, and Pull" methods have one fatal flaw: zero tolerance for partial mistakes. The second a child loses tension at any step, the whole knot unravels.

That's the floppy lace problem. And it's why shoe tying takes weeks of frustration with the wrong method but 10–15 minutes with the right one.

Here are the 8 strategies that actually work — in the order you should try them.

1. Take the shoe off the foot

Put the shoe on a table at chest height. This single change eliminates the balance challenge, the proprioceptive demand of bending forward, and the awkward angle of reaching down. Your child gets a clear, uncluttered visual field of the shoe.

2. Sit beside your child, not across

Mirror-image demonstration confuses developing brains. When you sit across from your child and tie, your "right" is their "left." Their motor system has to do mirror translation on top of motor planning. Sit on the same side as their dominant hand and tie from their perspective.

3. Use two-color laces

One color on the left, one color on the right. This single change replaces directional language ("the right lace") with color language ("the blue one"). Color words are processed faster and don't require mental rotation. Two-color laces are an evidence-based OT recommendation.

4. Use a checkpoint scaffold

This is the move that breaks the failure cycle. A checkpoint tool holds the laces in place at the two moments where progress usually collapses — after the first knot, after the first loop. Your child can fail at step 4 without losing steps 1–3. Training Ties were built specifically for this.

5. Use backward chaining

Start with the last step (the final pull-tight) and have your child master that alone. Then add the second-to-last step. Then the third-to-last. Each phase ends in success because the part the child does is small and ends with a completed knot. Full backward chaining guide.

6. Stay silent during attempts

Counterintuitive, but critical. Verbal cues during fine motor execution overload working memory. When your child is attempting to tie, don't narrate, don't correct, don't encourage. Let the visual model (or the video tutorial) and tactile feedback do the teaching. Talk in between attempts, not during them.

7. Keep sessions short

Five to ten minutes max. End every session on a partial success, even if you have to back up to an easier step. Three 5-minute sessions per week outperform one 30-minute session.

8. Pick a calm time

Not after school overstimulation. Not when hungry or tired. Saturday morning after breakfast. Pick the calmest window in your child's day. Regulation matters more than practice volume.

If your child has a specific learning profile

The 8 strategies above work for most kids. For specific conditions, we built dedicated shoe-tying help pages walking through what makes the standard method especially hard and how to adapt:

For teachers, OTs, and therapists

If you're providing professional shoe tying help in a classroom, clinic, or therapy setting, our teacher & OT resource page walks through classroom kits, bulk pricing, IEP-aligned instruction, and adapted PE applications.

The complete Shoe Tying Help hub

This article is the quick-start. For the full methodology, troubleshooting ("what to do when my child gets frustrated within 30 seconds"), tool comparisons, age-by-age timelines, and the complete FAQ, see the Shoe Tying Help hub.

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