She’ll never learn to ride if you don’t take the training wheels off

My daughter has a bike at both her mom’s place and at my place. The bike at her mom’s place still has the training wheels on it; the bike I bought her didn’t come with training wheels and it sat in the shed all winter waiting for her. She looked at the bike and said she couldn’t ride it because there were no training wheels. My simple reply to her was “You are ready when you decide to be ready. Are you ready today?” After protracted deliberation, she exhaled a hesitant “Yes.”

First is the hard step: teach them to balance and save your back. Like most dads, we teach our kids to ride a bike by plopping them on the thing and grabbing the seat from underneath firmly as they peddle forward. This usually involves running alongside hunched over – a very awkward and potentially back breaking posture. Our backs usually give out before they are willing to stop and the irony is that they want you to hold the bike steady while they learn to balance. I told my daughter that it doesn’t work that way; you can only learn to balance only while you are moving. It’s ironic, but the only thing that keeps you from falling is moving. It’s kind of like planetary mechanics, but the concept was a lot for a 6 year-old to hold in her head. I’ve seen dads, fasten broomsticks to the back of their kid’s bike so they can grab onto that instead of hunching over. Ingenious! If your back survives, your kid will learn to balance within no time (yes, this can be done in much less than an hour). Now you have another problem: she doesn’t know how to stop.

Teaching her to balance on a moving bike gave her the thrill. Teaching her to stop a moving bike gave her control. Teaching her to push from standing still gave her confidence. None of these steps involved training wheels — it’s time to get rid of them! She is literally growing up in front of your eyes; and you are literally engineering your own obsolescence.

Second is a harder step: teach them how to come to a rolling stop. Once your kid gets going, they don’t want to stop. But it’s still your job to run after a moving bike to catch them before they crash into a tree, roll down a slope or spin out if they hit a sandy patch. The trick to teaching them to stop without ending up in a pile of metal and flesh is to teach them to slow down enough so they can just extend one leg to form a tripod as they come to a gentle rolling stop. My daughter’s first attempt saw her fall on top of the bike with the handle bar jabbed into her ribs. She wanted to cry and give up. It wasn’t something worth crying over. And I didn’t let her give up. Get back on that bike and try again. I told her that it took far longer to learn to walk, but learning to stop a bike can happen in a single day! She doubted me at first but soon realized that the second fall was far less severe. The third, even less so and the fourth wasn’t even memorable. Literally, within minutes she built up the confidence to glide into a stop. All her movements were deliberate and her concentration was fierce, but she brought her bike to a complete controlled stop on her own.

Third and final step is the hardest one (for me, not her). While teaching her to balance on a moving bike gave her the thrill, teaching her to stop a moving bike gave her control. Now teaching her to push from standing still will give her confidence. The challenge here is for her to push herself forward with enough momentum so she has time to put her feet on the pedals and propel herself forward.  There’s little you can help at this stage, and the reason why I say this is the hardest stage is once they have learned the mechanics of balancing, stopping and starting, they don’t need you anymore. This is a prelude of your life to come: you have just patiently and lovingly engineered your own obsolescence.

Depending on where you live, bike helmets may not be required by law for minors. Get one for both of you anyway. She sees you wear yours; she won’t hesitate to wear hers. So there you have it. You’ve taught your daughter a life skill in three easy steps all in an afternoon. She is literally growing up in front of your eyes. She’ll recall these lessons in the future when she endures real challenges. Now, go and enjoy the good weather.