Shoelaces

"Dawn" wrote in message
oups.com...

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.

Rose's physical therapist taught us to teach her the bunny ear method, as it
is considered easier to learn. She finally learned to tie her shoes around
age 9. It also took her years to learn to use a zipper -- her winter coats
had big buttons until about 4th grade.

What I didn't realize is that I have been tying my shoes in granny knots all
these years. If I reverse the tie around the loop, it makes a square
instead, and it won't pull out as quick. I showed this to my 75 year old
mother, since she's the one who taught me, and she realized that she has
been tying grannies her whole life. So if the emphasis is on the *correct*
tying of shoelaces, I think 75 years would have anyone else here beat.


--
Warm Regards,

Claire Petersky

Personal page: http://www.geocities.com/cpetersky/
See the books I've set free at:
http://bookcrossing.com/referral/Cpetersky

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
...
On 2005-04-08, Scott wrote:

What's the age record for not being able to tie shoelaces?
I'm just wondering if DS is going to set it

It's really interesting to watch -- DD had a friend who
*had* to be able to tie her shoes, and she accomplished
it at age 2. DS could not care less about this skill.
So his shoes are all slip-ons, except for his new soccer
shoes (size 5-1/2 already at age 9!)

With the prevalence of elastic and velcro shoes these days, a lot of
nine-year olds have not yet bothered to learn to tie shoelaces.


I dunno know. Where I live, Velcro shoes are for BABIES and kids over maybe
6 wouldn't be caught dead wearing them. Plus, they are required to have tie
shoes for PE, so I really can't think of any kid who can't tie their shoes
by the time they're 6 or 7 at the very latest. In our neck of the woods,
kids are SO shoe knowledgable that they would really notice a kid that wore
velcro shoes past the age where they are 'cool'.

Marjorie

Maybe this is a good lesson for a rainy afternoon -- I'll
sit him down and we'll learn to tie knots!



------------------------------------------------------------
Kevin Karplus http://www.soe.ucsc.edu/~karplus
Professor of Biomolecular Engineering, University of California, Santa
Cruz
Undergraduate and Graduate Director, Bioinformatics
(Senior member, IEEE) (Board of Directors, ISCB)
life member (LAB, Adventure Cycling, American Youth Hostels)
Effective Cycling Instructor #218-ck (lapsed)
Affiliations for identification only.

On 2005-04-13, animzmirot wrote:

"Kevin Karplus" wrote in message
With the prevalence of elastic and velcro shoes these days, a lot of
nine-year olds have not yet bothered to learn to tie shoelaces.


I dunno know. Where I live, Velcro shoes are for BABIES and kids over maybe
6 wouldn't be caught dead wearing them. Plus, they are required to have tie
shoes for PE, so I really can't think of any kid who can't tie their shoes
by the time they're 6 or 7 at the very latest. In our neck of the woods,
kids are SO shoe knowledgable that they would really notice a kid that wore
velcro shoes past the age where they are 'cool'.

Marjorie

I guess I'm lucky. Very few of the elementary kids at my son's school
seem to be very clothing aware. Perhaps I'm just projecting my
son's attitudes onto his classmates, but I haven't seen much evidence
of teasing about clothing or use of clothing for status. Yu-gi-oh
cards, on the other hand, ...

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...
Plus, they are required to have tie
shoes for PE,

Hmmm, that seems like an odd requirement to me. Given the number of kids I
see whose shoes are forever coming untied, I'd think that shoes that close
with velcro would be considerably safer for PE!

My 7yo is perfectly capable of tying his shoes, but because the shoelaces
they put in shoes these days seem to be so prone to coming undone, he
prefers the ones that close with velcro. And, to my knowledge, no one gives
him a hard time about it. If anyone did, I'm sure he'd refuse to where them.
--
Be well, Barbara
Mom to Mr. Congeniality (7), the Diva (5) and the Race Car Fanatic (3)

I have PMS and ESP...I'm the bitch who knows everything! (T-shirt slogan)

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...
Plus, they are required to have tie
shoes for PE,

Why? This seems like an arbitrary rule with no basis. To me, I'd think that
the slip on kind of shoes that I described or velcro shoes would be safer
for PE than tie shoes (less likely to come untied and trip someone). FYI,
the kind of slip on shoes my DD has look something like this:
http://www.landsend.com/cd/fp/prod/0...673414169 580
Do you think that most kids would consider these dorky? I've seen tons of
high school students (and adults) wearing similar ones recently...they are
very much 'in'.

"Tracey" wrote in message
m...

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...
Plus, they are required to have tie
shoes for PE,

Why? This seems like an arbitrary rule with no basis. To me, I'd think
that
the slip on kind of shoes that I described or velcro shoes would be safer
for PE than tie shoes (less likely to come untied and trip someone). FYI,
the kind of slip on shoes my DD has look something like this:

http://www.landsend.com/cd/fp/prod/0...673414169 580
Do you think that most kids would consider these dorky? I've seen tons of
high school students (and adults) wearing similar ones recently...they are
very much 'in'.

You can get elastic laces made for tri athletes to make any tie shoes into
slip on athletic shoes. I put those in my running and tennis shoes earlier
this year when I broke my wrist. It's pretty much impossible to tie your
shoe with a broken wrist.

"Cathy Kearns" wrote in message
m...

It's pretty much impossible to tie your
shoe with a broken wrist.

Actually, some people do it with one hand.

I can't.

Jeff

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...


I dunno know. Where I live, Velcro shoes are for BABIES and kids over
maybe
6 wouldn't be caught dead wearing them. Plus, they are required to have
tie
shoes for PE, so I really can't think of any kid who can't tie their shoes
by the time they're 6 or 7 at the very latest.

I'm not even sure DD's school requires kids to wear sneakers for PE. In any
case, she wears shoes with velcro for PE and hasn't experienced any taunting
over them.

In our neck of the woods,
kids are SO shoe knowledgable that they would really notice a kid that
wore
velcro shoes past the age where they are 'cool'.


Well, I guess I'm glad DD doesn't attend elementary school in your neck of
the woods. While I expect the 'coolness' factor to kick in around 4th or 5th
grade, so far DD's able to wear what she wants with confidence in 2nd grade.

"Dawn" wrote in message
oups.com...

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.


DH uses the "bunny ear" approach to tie his shoes. Like you, he finds it
ties better than the traditional method.

Jeanne

In article ,
Bruce Bridgman and Jeanne Yang wrote:

"animzmirot" wrote in message
...

I dunno know. Where I live, Velcro shoes are for BABIES and kids over
maybe 6 wouldn't be caught dead wearing them.

snip

In our neck of the woods,
kids are SO shoe knowledgable that they would really notice a kid that
wore velcro shoes past the age where they are 'cool'.


Well, I guess I'm glad DD doesn't attend elementary school in your neck of
the woods. While I expect the 'coolness' factor to kick in around 4th or 5th
grade, so far DD's able to wear what she wants with confidence in 2nd grade.


Animzmirot apparently lives in an area where coolness is quite tightly
defined. She has raised similar issues in the past with respect to
climber pants and car booster seats.

This subthread raises a question that I think about often.

It seems that parents try to use peer pressure to their advantage with
their kids when they are young, to get them to potty train, try new
foods, etc.

Then they expect these same kids to resist peer pressure when they are
teens and are being pressured into dangerous or illegal activities,
such as drugs, alcohol, smoking, dangerous driving, shoplifting, etc.

And I wonder where the elementary years fit into all this. While I
wouldn't want to force my kids to wear "dorky" clothes or shoes, there
is a question as to how parents should best treat the clothing/shoe/hair
"coolness" issues in these years, to avoid giving kids the message that
"fitting in" is the be all and end all of having an acceptable social
life. It seems to me that there may be some benefit from kids
practicing saying "no" to trends in their elementary years, to prepare
them for needing to say "no" to dangerous choices in their teen years.

Where should a parent draw the line between helping their kids fit
in, versus teaching their kids that being one of the crowd isn't
always the right thing to do. Clearly the main line is the appearance
versus safety line, but I wonder if kids really "get" that message.
If you repeatedly buy your kids clothes based on what they perceive
to be "cool", do you explicitly discuss with your kids why it's ok
to do what's cool in this case but not other? It seems to me that a
lot of kids are getting the implicit message in their childhood years
that it's important to do what everyone else is doing, and then not
making good distinctions for themselves when they get to a point
where they need to sometimes decide to go against what's cool for
safety reasons.

--Robyn