Solution for Kids Who Can't Tie Their Shoes

If you look at my previous post, you can see that I have struggled with the dilemma of tie-shoes for a long time.  At first, it was for Garrett, which is who i wrote my original post about.  But, since then, my youngest Jason has decided that all shoelaces belong to him. He loves to make beautiful designs in the air with any laces, ribbons, beads...basically whatever he can get his hands on.  So if we wanted to use tie shoes, we had to hide them from Jason.
Luckily, the kids' school sent me a note one day letting me know they were going to try elastic laces for Jason.  I had no clue what they meant.  So I googled them, and ended up buying enough for everyone.  (Just do a search for elastic laces on Amazon).

Basically these are 6 individual elastic strips that you thread through corresponding holes.  They worked okay...until they didn't.  They are pretty hard to get through the holes, and can come out of the holes after some wear.

After further research, I found the laces that worked perfectly.  I felt like there should be a background of angelic singing when I saw how easy they were to install, how nicely they worked with the shoes, and how difficult they were for a ribbon-twirling cutie to remove from the shoe.

These are also considered elastic laces, but they lace regularly through the shoe, and then there is a slide/lock system to keep them "tied."  I am so in love with these.  I put them on my own shoes.  I found out that my sister uses these for her triathalons.  In fact, the original reason these laces were designed was for athletes to save time when putting on their shoes. 

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 These can also be found on Amazon when you search under elastic laces.  There are several brands that work great, so don't think you have to go with the most expensive ones. 

So, yes, I'm grateful for laces that, not only are no-tie, but also will stay in the shoes when my cute ribbon twirler decides he needs a new ribbon.  :)