Sock Food

Teaching kids to ride a bike can be a difficult and frustrating and often times painful.It's how you respond to those painful moments that determine the speed at which your child learns.

One of my early experiences teaching my son ended in bruises, blood, and tears. As I ran next to him he veered right, causing me to plow into him and his bike. This resulted in me roll jumping over him to avoid further collision but the damage had been done. As I vaulted in the air over his forward falling body I clearly saw (almost in slow-motion) his chin, mouth, and nose come into contact with the concrete first. And then I hit. Ouch.

I coddled him for a little while until the major sobs made their exit. Then I did what any respectable father would do - I told him to dry his tears, get back on the bike, and ride home. My worry was that if he didn't get back on the bike immediately, we'd have an entire summer of bike-crashing fear. I convinced him to get back on by telling him I'd hold on to the back, which I did for just a bit. He finished the trip home on his own and that made him a very proud four year old.

Here are several tips to use when teaching your kids to ride a bike:

1. Cardio. This is Columbus' first rule in Zombieland. I list it as my first tip because when you're teaching your kids to ride a bike you'll be doing a lot of running. And it's not even the nice fluid running you might be used to. It's that uncomfortable half running, half walking - sort of like in high school when you were late for class, had to hurry but also didn't want to be seen running. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.
   
2. Ditch the pedals.  Pedals are distracting at first when the sole goal is learning balance. They are fairly easy to remove and allow your child to forget about forward momentum. Have them keep their feet dangling and practice staying up using the handle bars. After trying this Ethan simply just got it. He figured out the steering and balance thing quickly. Before this, there was a lot of fuss over pedaling, even when I told him not to worry about it.
   
3. Don't hold on to the handle bars. By holding the handle bars you are not letting your child feel the bicycle's natural left and right movement. Instead, hold on to the back of their shirt, mid-way up the back, and guide them using a push and pull technique. Or you can hold the rear underside of the seat. By doing this, you are only providing the thrust to get the bike going. Your chilld will then feel themselves falling left or right and learn how to correct that. It's ok to catch them on their way down but you have to let them feel and recognize the fall.
   
4. Pedaling. This comes a bit easier than the whole balance thing. The biggest challenge here is understanding that forward pedaling means "go" and backward pedaling means "stop." Your child will eventually figure this out without much from you. You can practice, though, by holding their seat and having them start and stop just to get a feel for it.
   
5. Don't run behind. Reread my story above if you don't get this. I was on the side but we were going fast enough that it didn't matter when my son veered in front of me.
6. Practice falling. How you get off a bike is just as important as how you get on a bike. If you're child feels like they can't recover from falling have them practice putting their feet down. Finding a nice patch of grass isn't a bad idea either.
   
7. Getting going. This has been the hardest part for me and my kids. Getting started requires strength, coordination, and determination. The strength part can be remedied by starting on a slight decline. For coordination, have your child bring the pedal up to the top position on the opposite site of the bike. Then have them straddle the bike and push down on the pedal while kicking off with the foot on the ground. Make sure they keep pedaling or else they will never get the momentum necessary to stay up.
   
8. Confidence. Lots of praise and encouragement is needed, especially after a fall. All I can say about this is lay it on thick. Make sure they know that they are doing these things by themselves and not because of you.
   
9. Picking a Venue. I've found one of the best places to learn to ride a bike is in a school parking lot on the weekend. They are almost always empty and there is a great deal of room for the not-so-straight paths your child might take.
   
10. Have fun. Yeah, that. Don't forget about this part by making the lessons a living nightmare for your child. Riding bikes is supposed to be fun and you're the MC.