With No More Tears, No More Fears

First, a moment of gratuitous, self-indulgent bragging:  I’m certainly not Superdad, but I tell myself I’ve got redeeming qualities.  Like, I’m the parent kids come to when they need a splinter removed.  I know how to do it with minimal pain.  And I’m the one they come to when they need to learn how to swallow a pill, and are afraid.  Ten seconds later, they’ve done the job, fear is banished, and they go away confident they can do it on their own whenever they need to.  Oh yeah, and I can get ‘em up on a two-wheeler faster and easier than anybody you know.

Granted, it’s certainly not about brilliance. 

Teaching kids isn’t a matter of tossing out information with the alacrity and insight of Albert Einstein.  Kids learn best when they can see and feel what they’re learning, and I tend to break down activities in ways that kids sometimes find more effective than how we traditionally teach them.  The key is that most of us do teach things exactly the way our parent’s did, for right or wrong.  

SO, ABOUT LEARNING TO RIDE BIKES…

I taught my daughter and two sons each to ride their bikes without training wheels in less than one hour. And I mean comfortably less than an hour.  Nobody got frustrated.  Nobody got cuts or scrapes. They did it with little fear or apprehension, and when it was time for each child to go through the process, the older siblings were effusive about how easy dad had made it for them.  

Contrast that to the experience of other dads (and a few moms) I’ve known, who struggled to get their kids upright and on their own, with the parent becoming frustrated and exhausted in the process, and kids crying and some even begging for the training wheels to be bolted back on.  

The difference between these two outcomes, is that I teach them to ride in a way that is pretty much the opposite approach most people use.  For example, I start them off by getting used leaning and turning, rather than in a straight line.  Once they master the leans/turns, riding straight is effortless.  

But more about that later.  Let’s break it down for any parents facing this daunting task.

FIRST, HERE’S HOW NOT TO DO IT.

The classic approach to training kids to ride on two wheels is to unbolt the training wheels, put them on the seat, and run along side while they pedal up the road or sidewalk in a straight line.  

The critical failure of this approach, is that it puts the child and bike in a situation that is inherently not stable and which teaches them very little about what they actually need to know.  

They are riding upright (as long as you continue holding onto them) — but being upright with someone holding onto you simulates a situation we don’t actually experience while riding a bike. 

In fact, as we ride, we’re not really ever “in balance” — at least not perfectly.  We’re actually either leaning/falling to one side or to the other.  As we learn to ride, we learn to correct for this, primarily by shifting our weight in the opposite direction.  As we get to be better riders, we learn to do this with much more subtle shifts, until it appears we’re sitting upright and “in balance.”  

This conventional approach fails to teach our kids how to respond to the constant changes in balance that occur when one rides.  So, as soon as the parent lets go, the child leans or steers slightly, and without any knowledge of what to do when that happens, they fall, getting wrapped up in the bike and gaining a first taste of the pavement.  So then we dry their tears, patch their scrapes and put them back on the bike, and repeat the process over and over, until eventually they “get it” through trial and error.

What’s missing, is teaching the child how to balance and how to use the body and the bike in concert to adjust to the constant shifting that goes on when we ride.

The only thing this conventional process achieves effectively, is tiring out the parent and teaching a child how to crash – and probably on concrete or asphalt – adding injury to insult.  Let’s toss out this approach, and try a more logical one.

WE’LL CALL THAT, “WHAT TO DO” — and break it into four easy steps, each taking 10 minutes or less.

Step 1 — up to 10 minutes

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With each of my kids, I took them into the garage or driveway – a relatively flat space with no obstacles – put them on the bike and held them up, one hand on their seat and one hand on the handlebars, then told them only to pedal as I steered them in small circles.  Their job was to get acquainted with how it felt to pedal, move the handlebars, and feel how their body moved the bike as we went around and around. 

After a few minutes, and I mean like two or three, I asked them to use the brake to stop the bike, then we made circles in the opposite direction.  After a few minutes, we switched back again.

That driveway exercise totaled maybe ten minutes, and nobody fell off their bike or got hurt, or cried.  Rather, they thought it was fun to ride in circles, feeling the sensation of speed but with the safety of dad holding on.  In reality, as the minutes went on, I played less and less of a role in holding them up and influencing their balance — because their bodies quickly learned what they needed to do to keep balance.  My hands became only a safety blanket, holding them and the bike firmly when they got squirrely.

The key to this step, is that the child is learning how to ride the bike when they are not perfectly upright, but are actually leaning to one side.  Then they learn the same thing when leaning to the other side.  Then we reinforce this leaning by doing it again in either direction. 

The beauty is that they don’t need to do it very long before the body “gets it.”  Like I said, one to two minutes going each direction, then switch.  Do each side twice, and they’ll quickly have the tools they need.

Since the circular path they rode was maybe 15 feet in diameter, I could stay with them at a walking pace and therefore hadn’t worked up a sweat, so dad and child were both relaxed and doing fine.  

Step 2 — takes 10 minutes

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Drive to some place with a flat field of grass.  Best choice, a school or park with a baseball or football field not in use. 

Step 3 — takes 10 minutes

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Now do the parent-running-beside-the-child routine, with junior or missy riding through the grass in a straight line from one end of the field (or outfield, if a baseball park), to the other.  Tell them just to pedal and steer and you’ll hold them up.  In fact, you won’t need to do this very much.  You’re just the “parachute” in the event things go wrong. Let them pedal and wobble.  You’ll notice that they already seem to be self-correcting when the bike sways one way or the other.  This became natural to them in Step 1.  

After the first pass up the field, turn them around and do it again, but as they ride, run BEHIND them with a hand on the shoulder so they know you’re there, but DO NOT try to hold them up.  They won’t need it.

** note: pass up the temptation to do this exercise on the dirt infield or a running track.  Yes, it would make their pedaling easier, but also their “landings” harder, and fear of getting back on greater.  

About halfway across the field, stop running, and watch them go.  When they get to the other side, yell for them to hit the brakes before the hit the fence.

Step 4 — takes 10 minutes

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Do this a few more times, launching them off and then letting them go.  You can walk across the field and meet them on the other side.  Then as they get better, encourage them to try to ride a big loop all the way back to you.

If they fall once or twice while they’re out on their own, the soft grass and dirt will make it no problem.  

At this point, they’re feeling great and excited — so stop while you’re ahead.  Go get a soft drink or something to celebrate.

You can do it.  Hope this helps.