Independence – shoes!

If you are near my toddler when he’s putting his shoes on, you’ll often hear him say “they hug!”.  

With the 2 and 3 year old age group, its always a good idea to buy them shoes they can do themselves, Velcro strapped shoes are a good example for this, helping build their finger muscles as they get to grips with the Velcro, but also in building independence as they are designed to be easy to put on.

Showing them by putting our feet in our own shoes, encouraging them to point their toes then push their feet in, placing their hands on their shoes in the right places and repeatedly showing them how to undo and do up Velcro, will help towards the ultimate goal of putting their own shoes on.

However! It always fascinates me that even when adults lay out a child’s shoes the correct way round, children seem to often put their feet in the opposite shoe and still end up with them on the wrong feet!! So, a trick to this is to see if the straps ‘hug!’.

To get started, take a look at your child’s shoes together, show them that when the correct way round, the straps are right next to each other and therefore can touch easily, (and have a hug!). When the wrong way, the straps have to reach across the shoe and its not so easy for them to touch.

Next, pretend to be the straps on the shoe!  It’s a great excuse for a hug and reinforces the idea. Stand up right next to each other, explain that just like the straps, when you are right next to each other you can easily hug! but when the straps are on the wrong side of the shoe you have to reach across the shoe and cant have a hug! Here, create a gap between you and your child (use something visual to represent the shoe if needed such a cushion, but over exaggerate a stretch, holding hands or arms, but not fully reaching. Now test this theory on your child’s shoes, again, reinforcing the straps (and you!) having a hug when close together, but not when they have to stretch across the shoe.

As with all things, this takes time, but the more you reinforce the concept, the quicker they will grasp it and more comfortably pop their shoes on.

With footwear such as welly boots, I continue the hugging concept, by drawing two little stick figure’s (I don’t have a lot of skill with drawing!) of my child’s choice (currently its him and the cat!) one on each side of the inside edge of the welly – again when they are the right way round the characters can have a little hug, when on the opposite side they can't!

To support your child's experience of buying new shoes, take a look at this recommended book. This is an affiliate link...

New Shoes; Pirate Pete and Princess Polly