Just wanted to share an experience I had this week for those who may find themselves in a similar situation.

This week my son learned to tie his shoes. And unlike my reaction with my two older children, for whom I heaped on the praise and announced to family and friends, we let this major milestone for my son pass with very calm positive comments that were far more low key than I felt inside.

This is one of the things that happen when your child is 11 when he finally masters a task that most children have learned by age 5 or 6.

I wanted to sing, shout, hug ... but because he is a young man entering midschool, I had to keep my reaction such that he wasn't reminded of just how long and difficult it was for him to finally master this skill.

I'm sure it will be the same routine when he learns to ride a bike.

But the mommy inside me? She's doing one big monster of a happy dance.

Awesome! It is a big accomplishment, even more so because it wasn't just automatic. I certainly understand not notifying all the relatives, though...

My son learned to ride his bike at 11. Shoe tying with any real consistency remains somewhat elusive.

Congratulations to your son!

It great you can share this here. Congrats on your patience and to your DS.

Thank you for a little ray of hope. My 8 year old has successfully tied them once. Just once... but that one time was countless hours of tears and frustration. He hasn't tried again since and I haven't pushed it.

On a related note, I work in a middle school and the day of graduation I saw another classmate tie a girl's shoes in 8th grade. I asked her if she was hurt, not to be sarcastic but because I was surprised she didn't bend over. She said "No, I'm just slow at tying so she always does them for me." I thought that was so sweet, particularly for a middle school girl!

That's is great news, and great that you have somewhere to share your joy.

CAMom - what a nice story!

Our ds11 just learned to ride a bike this weekend; coordination is a more conscious effort for him than what I see with our dd5. Part of the reason we've kept him in dance class as long as he's willing.
Seriously, I thought dd was going to learn to bike before him.

Tying shoes I completely left up to him, as he didn't seem to care and was ok with velcro shoes. He just sat down one day at age 7, without any recent instruction and tied his shoes, and hasn't looked back. Quite a relief as I had figured it would be a while...

For our ds it seems like a combination of coordination and seeing that there might be a point to learning something (motivation) before he can progress. He was invited on vacation by a friend and found out they do a lot of biking, so really put a lot into it this weekend, despite the heat and the frustration. It was pretty cool.

Congrats to your ds for a milestone achieved!

Congratulations to your son. I am reminded of my many attempts to pass a driving test. For most teens it's no problem, but not for me. Ultimately I succeeded, thank goodness.

You've given me hope!! At 8, DS gets it right about half the time.

I recently commented to DS7's 2nd grade teacher how I was glad to see that the 2nd grade report card doesn't have "shoe-tying" on it, like last year's kindergarten report card did, since DS still cannot tie his shoes. Teacher laughed and said he did a little shoe-tying lesson at the beginning of the year, as many of the kids didn't know how. (School for HG kids.) Unfortunately, my kid missed it since we transferred there mid-year.

We've just given up and gone velcro, crocs and merrells.

Congrats to the new shoe tiers and new bike riders too! DS finally agreed a few weeks ago to try his bike again, after a spill last year. And he loves it! He says he's never taking off the training wheels though. Fine with me.

Congrats to ABO Jr! We've yet to hit that milestone. Youngest is 13. She did, however, learn to ride her bike at 11-- it was a slow and agonizing process, only concluded when I told her it was teach herself by a certain date or take Homeschool PE.

Fortunately, girls' shoes are available in a number of non-tying styles.

I'm all misty-eyed reading this. Where are all you people in my real life??? This has been one of many little things my DD8 uses to compare herself to others and finds herself lacking.

Is there really hope that she might tie her shoes one day? Or, as she likes to point out, will it be redundant in an era of velcro and elastic? If and/or when it does happen, I'll being doing one helluva happy dance, too!

I'm my son's (age 8) den leader for cub scouts. Last year, at one of our den meeting, we sat and taught the second grade boys in the den how to tie a necktie and how to tie a shoelace. Most had no idea how to tie their shoes, mainly b/c everyone has velcro.