Socks
Children often have difficulty putting socks on correctly and end up with the heel on the top of their foot.
Strategies and advice
- Show your child how to take off and put on socks correctly and let them help you.
- Try buying socks that have different coloured heels and toes.
- Trainer socks can help to show where the heel goes without a lot of sock that needs pulling over the heel.
- Looser socks are easier, so let your child practise with your socks. A little talcum powder can be added to the bottom of the foot to help the sock slide on easily.
- Cotton socks are easier to handle than nylon socks.
- Practise putting socks onto dolls or teddies.
Shoes
Children can find putting on their shoes a challenge.
Strategies and advice
- Sit behind the child and show them how to take off their shoes by undoing the fastenings, pulling the shoe open to loosen it and pulling it upwards with the hand under the heel.
- Allow them to practise taking off your shoes for you or shoes off their toys.
- Encourage your child to assist with fastenings.
- Start with putting on larger/looser shoes. Dressing-up games are a good time to practise this.
- Allow your child to practise with your shoes.
- Open-back or slip-on shoes are easier to start with.
- Teach your child one of two methods according to their ability:
- Left foot over right knee and put shoe on, right foot over left knee and put shoe on.
- Place the shoe on the floor and let the child wriggle their foot into the shoe.
If your child needs extra support, let them sit on the bottom step, against a wall or in the corner of a sofa.
Always do the task in the same order so it is easier to remember which bit comes next.
Initially, you may need to position the correct shoe by the correct foot. If your child has difficulty putting each shoe on the correct foot, you can:
Buy shoes with a logo on the outer side.
Hold shoes next to each other before putting them on to see if they are ‘friends’, that is they ‘face’ each other. Place shoes in front of your child in their correct position, so that the left shoe is matching the left foot.
Help your child recognise their left and right shoe by drawing arrows inside the shoes pointing together.
Backward chaining is helpful for all parts of this process. This means breaking down the task into small steps and teaching the last step first. When they have mastered this, let them do the last two steps and so on. This way your child will finish the task every time and you will gradually reduce the help you are giving.
Last reviewed February 2026