Evan has never had shoes with proper shoelaces, but we got him some nice black shoes for school last week. Then we had to teach him how to tie his own shoelaces. It went pretty quickly actually, only had to show him once or twice and he picked it up slowly and by the time school was to start, he had it down pat. I’m pretty sure I would have taken days/weeks to learn how to tie my own shoes, but probably I was much younger than 8. 🙂