Ok ok so she's not fully riding a bike, but she has been pretty hot on her balance bike for the last year and a half, zooming around faster that I could walk by the end of last summer. So this Spring, when our household goodies finally arrived, we thought we'd move her on to the bigger bike we bought with pedals, freeing up the balance bike for Tiger to master.
Twas not a success. On either count.
Now I know many kids struggle with pedals on a bike, but she is almost four, and you'd have thought that by four she'd at least be able to ride a trike and figure out how pedals work. But then like I said, she was a child that could walk by fourteen and a half months yet didn't know how to crawl till over eighteen.
So since we were in Toys R Us yesterday we decided to buy her a trike. It didn't matter which trike she test drove tried she only just reached the pedals on all of them, and after much encouraging, explaining, pushing and showing (and realising that a patient teacher I do not make: daddy will be giving the driving lessons when the time comes!), she finally managed to move. Backwards.
But we bought a trike non the less, and after an afternoon of fun in the sun she's managed to zoom enough times round the picnic table to make the Don and I dizzy. Only one way though (the British way good girl!): going ante-clockwise proved too difficult as what we all assume is a flat patio out the back must actually have a slight slope on it.
Anyway, while she was learning the art of pedalling on the trike, the Don took the pedals off the bike in order to give her back a balance bike and get her confident balancing again after six months of no biking. And that she's picked up again pretty quickly!
2 comments:
Interesting! Joel's the same. He has a trike and whizzes about the back garden but has yet to figure out how to effectively use the pedals! We inherited Mika's bike the other day and it has stabilisers, so we'll see how he gets on with that come the time! 42 Degrees.........oh me! 11 Degrees here yesterday. x
I reckon the trike looks a fun addition to the garden but I am wondering if you are maybe expecting too much of T. Most children learn to ride pedal bikes without stabilisers around 5 or 5 and a half. Apparently it can be about 9-12 months earlier they learn the balance bike way rather than the stabilisers way. So Toots is still pretty young to be riding a bike with pedals and no stabilisers, even given she was riding easily on her balance bike.
The two main components to learning to ride are the pedals (which Isaac, as you say, similarly to most kids took weeks to master) and the balance. The philosphoy of the balance bike is that the balance is the harder thing to master so if you get that first it helps, but mastering the pedals is still a difficult thing. If they are used to a trike the child might have a better idea of pedals but it will have likely taken them a while to get that pedal idea in the first instance too.
Then once the two components are mastered the trick is to put them together and going from a balance bike to learning to pedal and then to remembering how to balance when pedalling, or going from pedalling a bike with stabilisers bike to removing the stabilisers is another hurdle. It takes time either way. Days if not weeks of running along side them, holding the bike, getting them to push down on the pedals, holding their feet to show them how to push down, picking them up again etc etc. I'm not sure it can be quick either way.
So I guess what I'm saying is don't give up hope but don't expect that even after learning to pedal on a trike that riding a bike will come straight away. It's worth persevering though coz once they can ride, well they never forget. It's like riding a bike.
Can you tell I am now an avid watcher of the tour de france and reader of cycling weekly??
oh and what about scooters? Have you tried them? Now that's a whole other thing entirely and not one either or mine can get!!
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