Teaching him to master this skill has been a goal of mine since half way through last summer. He and I tried once and he was in a sour mood, so it went quite poorly. Then every time I suggested it he was, shall we say, less than interested. And then one day at the end of the summer we tried to go on a family bike ride (with training wheels) and discovered that Sam's tire was so flat that it wouldn't even hold air long enough to carry him down the driveway.
And, for whatever reason, it took us 3 months to get that tire fixed. Finally in December I happened upon a can of Fix-A-Flat in the bike aisle while doing some completely unrelated Christmas shopping. 2 days later Chris had re-inflated the tire and removed the training wheels. Sam was motivated this time, because over the course of three months he had seen a couple of his friends ride on 2 wheels, including the slightly older neighbors around the corner.
So one Saturday morning he and I set out to give it a try. I was totally awkward in my attempts to hold his bike, and it took me a few tries to figure out how best to explain to him what he needed to do. He have it a few goes and then declared that he needed a break. Not wanting to push things, I agreed that we'd try again after lunch. And then I watched the kid grab his Razor scooter and zoom around with one leg out to the side, leaning this way and that, completely steering himself with his body motion. And I realized that he already knew how to balance the bike, he just needed to remember to pedal at the same time.
So after lunch we tried again. On go 2 I let go with one hand. Next time I let both hands hover just beside the bike - and told him that I'd let go. And that was all he needed. Before I knew it, he was riding back and forth from our driveway to the stop sign, only needed me to help get him started. And then he attempted his first turn. All in the span of no more than 20 minutes
And later that day he learned to get himself started with the help of the small slope at the bottom of the driveway. And then I took him on his first bike ride.
By the end of the weekend he no longer needed help getting started. He gotten over his concern with sidewalks (they are, in fact, quite narrow). He now begs to go on bike rides all the time, and we generally willingly agree - bikes are awesome! And its very cool to be able to do suck a legit kid/family thing with him.
I was super proud of him, and super pleased to eliminate the bit of mom guilt that came with the fact that I hadn't taught him to do it yet. And he was beyond proud and exited as well:
"I'm really gettin' the hang of this!"
"Hey, I did it!"
"Now I fit in with the other kids!"
If only we'd bought that can of fix-a-flat 3 months ago!
No comments:
Post a Comment