Advice and resources : Putting on shoes and socks

Overview

Some children can struggle to put their socks and shoes on properly, ending up with their socks on the wrong way around or the shoes on the wrong foot.

If your child is struggling, you might notice that:

• Their socks are on with the heel on the top of their foot
• Their laces are left untied or stuffed into the shoe
• The tongue on their shoe is wedged into the toe
• The heel of their shoe is downtrodden because they can’t pull it over their heel
• Their shoes are on the wrong feet
• The Velcro straps aren’t pulled tight so their shoe is loose on their foot

Socks

You can help your child learn how to put their socks on by:

• Demonstrating how to remove and put socks on and let them help you do it
• Buying cotton socks that have different coloured heels and toes or trainer socks that are easier to put on
• Playing with bigger socks that are easier to put on
• Practice putting socks on dolls or stuffed teddies
• Sit behind them and put on their socks using hand over hand guidance
• Starting with taking their sock off, use the ‘backward chaining technique’ where you leave the last small step (e.g. pulling the sock off the toe) for your child to do. When they’ve mastered that step, you let them to do the last two steps and so on until they can take their sock off themselves

Shoes

There are two methods you can choose from to help your child learn to put on their shoes:

1. Put their left foot over their right knee to put their shoe on and then their right foot over their left knee
2. Placing the shoe on the floor and wriggling their foot into the shoe

You can help your child learn how to put their shoes on by:

• Encouraging them to help with Velcro straps
• Starting with taking their shoe off, use the ‘backward chaining technique’ where you leave the last small step (e.g. pulling the shoe off) for your child to do. When they’ve mastered that step, you let them to do the last two steps and so on until they can take their shoes off themselves
• Practicing in the same order each time to help them learn what comes next
• Practising putting on and taking off your shoes as bigger shoes make this easier
• Getting them to sit on the bottom step or lean against a wall for extra support
• Making it easy for them to identify their left and right shoe. You can try fixing something bright onto one shoe. Buying shoes with a logo on the outer side. Holding shoes next to each other before putting them on to make sure they’re ‘facing’ each other. Placing shoes in front of your child in their correct position, so that the left shoe is matching the left foot. Helping your child recognise their left and right shoe by drawing arrows inside the shoes pointing together.

When to ask for help