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Teaching a kid to ride a bike is for Supermoms
At some point, your child's inability to ride a bike becomes a reflection not of his or her state of physical ability, but on your parenting.
So I've been thinking, Lily can't ride a bike yet. What is wrong with me? (See my previous post, topic Lily can't swim yet.)
She's actually very physically able. She just got selected for the "All Star'' soccer team. And she's a great rope jumper, as I've shown you before.
But when you mix in her fears, you start to realize why she is headed toward age 7 and is still scared to ride a bike EVEN WITH TRAINING WHEELS.
OK, add in a bad experience (a previous effort ended up with her splayed on the rocky landscape feature of my next door neighbor.)
But every time I see a young Olympic contender, I know how much the parents had to do with that. Because in the end, it's the parent's choice to push a child to learn some difficult physical task, like exceling in gymnastics, becoming a superstar tennis player, or just riding a bike.
I work. I don't have every afternoon to select what I want to play with my kids.
On the weekends, in our little bit of spare time, I can either take Lily to the library, which I did this weekend and she loved, or take her to the pond to feed stale bread to the ducks, which I also did this weekend and she loved. Or I can spend a bunch of time trying to make her learn something physical that's hard, like riding a bike.
And you start to wonder: Does everyone in the world really have to know how to ride a bike? Can't she ride one of those giant tricycles?
What finally pushed me over the edge was a little kid, maybe 3 at the most, whom I saw riding his bike without training wheels at Plantation's Central Park this weekend. I was shamed by a toddler!
So I told her she was going to learn, like it or not. She said she didn't want to, that "it's not my thing.'' But I bribed her with a new Lil' Petshop figure if she could do it, and she did. Sort of.
It did not come easy. It wasn't one of those things where the kid is riding along fine and you had let go five minutes ago.
No, she's going to need practice. Her balance is not perfect, is really the nicest way I can put it.
And she's afraid. She walked up to a tree and banged her head on it to see what it would feel like if she crashes.
I looked up some websites about bike riding. Apparently having a kid for whom bike riding doesn't come naturally is rare. The instructions on some of these links don't take into account that some of us can't run as fast as we can while bending down holding onto the seat of a tiny bike, for 20 minutes.
Nevertheless, here they are if you want help:
How to teach a kid to ride a bike
Teaching kids to ride
Common mistakes in teaching a kid to ride (including pretending you're holding on, when you're not, which I actually thought was a great idea -- oops)
An interesting alternative method of teaching that involves taking the pedals off ... Um, I already told you I work, I don't have time to dismantle a bicycle but maybe it'll work for you.
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Comments
My daughter never learned to ride a bike, and she turned out ok. That may have been a precursor of things to come, since she didn't learn to drive until she was 18, either!
Posted by: no supermom | February 15, 2009 12:03 AM
My child also had a scary crash while riding on training wheels. We overcame the fear by taking the bike to large parking lots where there would be little to no traffic, like schoolparking lots after everyone was gone. Practicing riding on a big, open, flat area builds confidence and eliminates the fear. From there, we learned steering, braking, and are now working on balance. One way to take a step between using training wheels and removing them is to raise the height of the training wheels slightly. Raise both equally, not just one side. This will create a situation where your child will be balancing the bike without even knowing, while keeping the safe feeling of the training wheels and avoiding the falls. Good luck!
Posted by: Matt | May 28, 2009 5:08 PM