Introduction
This lesson came to mind when we recently gave our daughter a bicycle with training wheels. We were actually quite excited when we bought it for her, Thinking she would get a little more exercise thanks to the bike as well which was needed after a long inside winter.
Healthy
Riding a bike is good for her health as well. It will get the body moving and I always loved riding a bike and still would pick a bike over walking any day. Learning how to ride a bike will be a win win for her gross motor skills and getting some exercise as well.
The first attempt to practice failed
As my daughter didn't really get the concept of how to place her feet on the peddles and consistently keeping them on the right part of the peddle, I had to find some tips to get her to understand how to do so. The first attempt of practicing riding her bike was a complete disaster. I had no idea that this would be such a difficult task to understand, until I found out on the spot.
Frustration caused me to postpone the next attempt
I'm not proud of saying it, but the fact that we all got so frustrated in the park the first attempt, made me postpone a new attempt for a few months. Not really fair to her as she was so happy with her bike, and mentioned it quite a few times but both of us just didn't feel like repeating that frustrating process again.
I knew this was disappointing to her and thought of a way to educate her before trying again. I decided to look for videos of other children that were learning how to ride a bike, especially bike with training wheels. Luckily (sorry parents), I wasn't the only parent struggling to make her understand how to place her feet.
I found this video on Youtube:
I instantly knew that this was the first thing we'd need to try and take it from there. Such a simple idea and tip, it didn't even cross my mind.
My boyfriend agreed that this could do the trick
But we didn't find any stones that were suitable to let her practice as the child in the video. After a few weeks, he knew how to proceed without the stones. Quite the easy solution in our situation. Our terrace is covered in wood, and to drain the water from the rain, we have one place where we can lift the wood as that hole below it collects and drains the water that falls on the terrace. Simply by lifting this small piece of wood, she can practice riding her bike there:
A few days ago, they went out to practice
My boyfriend took her out to explain her again how to step on the bike, how to get off and also how to place the feet on the peddles because that went horribly wrong the last time we tried. But all this theory wasn't happening before he checked the height of the bike again and adjusted it accordingly, apparently it was a bit too low for her.
When they got home, he was so proud as she listened so well and she had a lot of fun riding the bike without too many struggles. I guess she really really wanted to rid her bike and knew she had to pay attention to what we were explaining as otherwise it may end up in the hallway for her to look at only again. That was not the intention btw, but I can totally understand that she thought that would happen. Either way, she did an excellent job and now she can practice it on the terrace thanks to daddy's trick with the wooden floor.
Progress!
Today she decided to practice again on the terrace and she remembered all the steps her father explained, took her time to get up and did an excellent job again. She had fun riding it while she didn't bump into any obstacles or hurt herself as this little trick is great to let her practice by herself. I don't know how long we should practice as we are doing now before at some point we can think about removing the training wheels, but we'll take it one day at a time, I guess.
For now, she can do some cardio training on the terrace (haha) while also training her gross motor skills, which is a win-win, right?