Unless they are left handed themselves, most parents automatically assume that their child will also be right handed. You may notice as your child develops that they reach for items with their left hand. For instance, your child may grab the spoon to feed themselves with their left hand. As a right handed person, you may instinctively remove the spoon from their left hand and place it in their right, thinking that you are fixing a potential mistake your child has made, and teaching them the correct behavior. If you notice that you child is naturally inclined to use their left hand as their dominant hand, your child may actually be left handed.
There are basically two options for the left handed learner when it comes to tying shoes. Either, they can learn to tie their shoes left handed, or learn to tie their shoes the right handed way. Teaching a left handed child to tie their shoes using a right handed method may result in the child struggling to learn to tie their shoe much more than if they were taught to tie their shoes left handed. Fortunately, tying shoelaces is a relatively simple process, and it is easy to reverse the instructions for the left handed person.
Instead of trying to reverse the process of how to tie shoelaces, the mirror technique is a simple alternative. This method works well for basic tasks, like learning to tie shoes. For more complicated tasks, this technique may be less effective, and the end result may be more confusing than helpful. To execute this method of teaching someone to tie shoes left handed, simply sit across from the person you are teaching and have them repeat your movements. Instead of needing to take into consideration that the person across from you will appear to be performing the task backwards, the left handed learner needs to simply mirror exactly what the person across from them is doing.
Tying shoes is a quick and simple task, once you already know how to do it. Therefore, if you are teaching the task to someone else who is left handed, it is relatively easy to simply reverse the instructions, and show someone to tie their shoes left handed. You may even find that it increases your own dexterity to force yourself to learn how to tie shoes left handed. Make it a learning experience for both you and the person you are teaching.