Learning to Ride a Bike

Recently, Mr Sociable has perfected riding his "big boy" bike without training wheels. We started teaching him on holidays at Easter, but haven't done a lot of practice since then. This holidays, we spent a couple of days practising and he perfected the skill really quickly. I guess he was "ready" this time. He is pretty pleased with himself and we have had some great bike-riding adventures this school holidays.

Carss Park, Sydney NSW

So, here is a list of what worked for us:

1. Lower the seat

We lowered the seat so that Mr Sociable could easily put his feet on the floor to steady himself if he got wobbly.

2. Use a bike with a handle

Mr Sociable's bike came with a removable parent handle. In the early days of learning to ride, the handle made it heaps easier (both when he first learned to ride with training wheels and when he learned to ride without them). We forgot to take the handle to the caravan park at Easter, and we ended up using a tent pole instead when Franky's back got sore.

Mr Sociable on his 3rd birthday, riding his bike for the first time

Of course, you don't have to use a handle, but it is hard on your back!

Franky's back was pretty sore by the end of this holiday!

3. Tip the training wheels back
When we first started teaching him to ride without training wheels, we removed one training wheel completely. But we found that he just leant to the other side, rather than learning to balance. An "older" mum in the caravan park suggested leaving both training wheels on but just tipping them back a bit so they weren't on the ground all the time. This worked really well - the training wheels were there when he wobbled to one side, but they weren't in use when he was balancing well. We gave him lots of praise when he was able to balance without the training wheels touching the ground (you could tell when they touched the ground because they were pretty noisy!). As he got more confident, we tipped the training wheels further and further up, until they weren't being used at all (and we finally removed them).

One training wheel on - see how he leaned to the right?

4. Find a flat place to practise
I read that you should find a quiet, distraction-free place to practise - and I agree, it's much easier to practise when you don't have to worry about crashing into other kids. However, Mr Sociable needed a lot of encouragement when he first started learning so we did find it helpful to have other people around to show off to encourage him. We found a flat circuit was great for riding around and around without stopping (eg an empty carpark or large driveway).

Practising on the driveway at the holiday house

5. Lots and lots of praise

Mr Sociable needed lots of encouragement to keep trying. He has a tendency to give up on activities that don't come easily to him - so I was determined that he would work at this until he succeeded. It helped having other adults around for extra encouragement.

Campbelltown Bicycle Education Centre, Sydney NSW

Kendall Cottage Rotary Park, Ulladulla NSW

Have you taught a little person to ride a bike? What tips do you have to share?

Will my weaknesses be their weaknesses?

Do you ever think about your areas of weakness? Do you wonder if your kids will inherit your messy hand-writing? or your terrible ball skills? or your dislike of maths? or your unco dance moves?

I recently read a FB/blog comment in which the author criticised parents who allow their children to start school without ball skills. It occurred to me that I could be one of those parents next year! I have no aptitude for sport and Mr Sociable has shown little interest in ball games - as such, we don't spend a lot of time throwing, catching or kicking a ball.

That comment has made me think about all the things that I am not teaching my kids. All the things that they could be learning, but don't. There are things that come easily to me as a parent - teaching Mr Sociable to read, creating fun learning activities, involving my kids in cooking and doing craft together. But there are some areas in which I feel pretty unskilled - particularly in sport. I don't watch sport, I don't play sport. I can't tell you the rules of soccer or basketball, I can't tell the the best way to learn to throw overarm. So how can I encourage my kids to overcome their sport handicap?

I've been thinking the example my Mum gave me while I was growing up. My Mum is not very interested in craft - she would rather do just about anything else than complete a scrap-booking or card-making project (I suspect she would even rather do the ironing!). But, my sister and I really loved it. So, she encouraged our interest by buying card-making equipment and doing card-making projects with us. She learnt how to do stencil embossing, paper-quilling and stamping. I remember spending lots of time at the kitchen table together, working on Christmas cards and other projects. Despite not being very interested in craft, my Mum learnt new skills and shared them with us.

So, last week, I decided that Mr Sociable and I should kick a ball around in the backyard. He was not very interested in the aimless kicking that I suggested. So, I created a goal against the fence, using our empty sandpit. Then he really started to enjoy the challenge of scoring goals! We weren't competing - just taking turns to kick the ball into the goal. He was able to start out pretty close to the goal and to try moving backwards as he got more confident. He did this task over and over again (and was keen to try again the next day!).

The thing that surprised me the most was that I actually enjoyed this activity. Even though I'm not very sporty, I enjoyed the time spent doing sport with my boys. Even though I felt out of my depth teaching Mr Sociable how to kick, I loved seeing his excitement when he managed to kick a goal! I'm not pretending to suddenly be a sport-lover, but I am keen to spend more time together in the backyard, kicking a ball around (I'm also planning to dig out my "Fundamental Movement Skills" information from school to make sure I'm actually teaching him the right thing ;)).

So, what about you? Can you see areas of weakness that you inherited from your parents? Do you have areas of weakness that you can see your kids are developing too?