Watch the video below that shows a child learning to tie his shoes. Previous attempts to teach him have resulted in failure and frustration.

Note that the teacher breaks the skill into clear tag points.

Pay particular attention to the tag point used to help the student create the loop in the shoelace. Theresa does not simply ask him to make a loop, since this is the aspect that has caused him the most trouble in the past.

The young boy in this video does not speak English and the teacher does not speak Icelandic.

First, we found that making the loop was stressful to him. It was a point of many failures in the past. We looked for a place to focus that would bypass that poisoned direction and found the tag point, “squeeze” worked well. He made the loop without any problems if all he had to do was squeeze it. This simple ¼ turn of squeeze the loop instead of make the loop, gave this student a new perspective and encouraged him to keep on learning without fear. He even taught his younger brother to tie his shoes!

The video does not show the entire process, since it is very repetitive in nature. Each tag point was repeated 5 or more times, going back to the beginning of the shoe tying sequence each time.