In article ,
Tamex wrote:

On Fri, 8 Apr 2005 16:22:45 EDT, "Dawn" wrote:

He may be too old for this, but I still sometimes use the "bunny ear"
approach -- tie a simple underhand knot and then fashion two "bunny
ear" loops, and tie those in a second underhand knot. I find this
actually holds better than the traditional way.

My family calls this the "Mr. Rogers method". I learned to tie my
shoes in the traditional manner, but my younger sister was having
trouble learning how (this, of course, was back when you were tested
on shoe-tying ability to enter kindergarten). Apparently, my mother
saw Mr. Rogers teaching how to tie shoes on one of his shows, and he
used that method. That clicked with my sister, and she still ties her
shoes that way to this day. My daughter also had trouble learning to
tie shoes, but she picked up the Mr. Rogers method right away and
still uses it at age 8. No reason to tie the other way.

Although I tie my own shoes the "traditional" way, I've never used any
method other than the bunny ears / Mr. Rogers method to teach a child
to tie shoes. It is way easier to teach! My friend taught me that way
when I was in preschool, so I was at most four years old. (I don't
know when I switched to the traditional method.) My oldest learned to
tie shoes at 4yo also, but I am grateful for velcro with my youngest
(now 4yo), whom I couldn't even imagine tying shoes yet!

Even my oldest, who learned at four, still isn't that great at tying
shoes tightly at 11yo! I think this is partly due to having had so
many alternatives to tie shoes over the intervening years. Not only
velcro, but slip-ons (we only did slip-ons once for running shoes, as I
don't feel that they hold the foot securely enough, but they do use
slip-ons for indoor shoes at school during the winter), sandals, winter
boots, rain boots, etc. Also there is a "culture" of untied or loosely
tied shoes, where the kids would try to slide in an out of tied shoes
without untying and re-tying them. It's partly laziness, but partly
that it is harder than it ought to be for many kids, due to lack of
experience, which sort of gets them into a vicious cycle.

Soccer shoes and hiking boots are the only shoes that regularly
get tied properly

--Robyn