We have been trying to teach the girls to ride their bikes for a couple of years now. But they were just SO afraid to ride without training wheels. We took them off a few times, and held on to the back of their seat and ran along with them. Nothing worked and they would just beg us to put their training wheels back on.
But this year we were determined to teach them how. So today after school we were going to go out and ride bikes. I decided to google how to teach a child to ride a bike, just on a whim. And I found some videos that had a totally different technique, and claimed a much higher success rate. So I showed the videos to Josh, and he thought they sounded cool. So out we went.
The first thing you do is take the pedals off the bike. Then you have the child walk with their feet on the ground for awhile, and just get the feel of it. Then you have them "glide." (As seen below.) The point is you are teaching them balance, before you have them pedal.
We went out to ride at 4:30, and after 10 min of "gliding" Tessa said "I'm ready for my pedals." So Josh put them back on. 18 minutes after we went outside, Tessa was riding a bike! I was in shock!
She still has trouble looking where she is going, and we are working on using the breaks instead of her feet to stop, but she is riding! It took 18 min. I looked at my clock when she rode on her own for the first time, and it was 18 min later. I still can't believe it. After 2 years of running behind her holding her up...! And we didn't have to even touch them. They did it all themselves.
Maggie is getting it. She isn't quite as ready as Tessa, but she is getting the balancing down. She will be riding too before you know it!
Video of Tessa Riding
Instructional video from YouTube:
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing. We will be trying this!
Post a Comment