I have three kids. An older boy and twins (B/G) that turn 8 in a month. Both boys learned how to ride a two wheeler at about 4 1/2 - 5. My daughter still can’t do it. We have spent hours in the park but as soon as it wobbles a bit she stops pedaling, loses all momentum and tips over. She isn’t the most coordinated but does ballet, swims and played baseball for the last few years so has done some athletic stuff.
I have almost given up. The boys want to go on bike rides with me but she gets upset when she can’t come. Also, if home alone with them can’t leave her behind.
Any ideas from the collective brilliance here in the Lavender Room?
Can she balance? Have you done the whole taking off the pedals and lowering the seat thing? Turn the bike into a strider so she can get confidence and learn balance before putting the pedals back on.
Can she balance? Have you done the whole taking off the pedals and lowering the seat thing? Turn the bike into a strider so she can get confidence and learn balance before putting the pedals back on.
This. She’s probably too big for a push bike or strider, but you can take the pedals off, lower the seat and create one. Let propel the bike by pushing her feet against the ground, like the Flintstones. She’ll gradually start going faster and learning how to balance the bike.
But don’t stress about it either, and don’t push her, or she may learn to hate it. By son was extremely cautious and didn’t learn to ride until he was 8. He came in third at the state championship road race when he was 11. We got my youngest daughter a push bike when she was two, and she was riding a real bike by the time she turned 3.
Just to pile on a bit.
Take the pedals off. Lower the seat to the point that her feet touch and she can walk the bike. Have her push and glide. With my daughter I started by pushing her short distances and letting her coast while I ran next to her. Once she figures out how to do that you’ve got it.
started my daughter on a balance bike/strider at 2.5 or so. She took to it immediately bc it is basically walking while crouching. now at 4.75 she tears up and down the sidewalk/house on that thing. I got her a bike with training wheels for her bday. She rides it some but hasn’t really grasped it bc I got carried away and got her a bike a little too big. She keeps trying though because we make it fun for her. If she is having trouble, then slow down, go back to basics and know that she’ll do some things faster/better than the boys and some things slower at first. Just make sure it stays fun. AND get her a balance bike!
This worked for my son, who has developmental problems and motor coordination issues…
Lower her seat so that she can put both feet flat on the ground. Take the pedals off the bike.
Find a gentle, grassy slope that she can get some momentum going without pedaling (which is required since you took the pedals off).
Have her coast down the hill over and over again, trying to keep her feet off of the ground as much as possible. She gets scared, all she has to do is put a foot down. Also much simpler for you…just relax and offer encouragement. Maybe have a beer (this worked for me).
Once she can coast down the hill the whole way without putting a foot down, put the pedals back on. Have her coast down the hill with feet on the pedals.
Once she can do that, she’s ready to try a pedaling start on flat ground.
This method worked far, far better than me running alongside my son. It was also far less stressful for the both of us.
Good luck…there is nothing like seeing your child master riding a bike.
Here’s the System
Put her on the street and give her a push downhill. Make sure you conveniently forget to teach her how to use the brakes. Allow her to get up to speeds that exceed your running capability. Pick a street so that on the end, there are a few expensive cars. Laugh when she rides smack dab into the back of a cadillac.
The strider bike does wonders for confidence. My daughter could go up and down the street in perfect balance at 3 yo because of that thing. Once we moved up she refused to try training wheels. Pedaling still took some time to master as she was used to just pushing with her feet.
You need to motivate her. Try whipping her with a switch until it leaves marks. That seems to work for kids that think it is appropriate to push others off of video games, so it should work well for her.
I can echo what others have said about teaching her to ride without pedaling. My kids were slow at learning and that’s what we did.
My problem was teaching my 70 year old mother-in-law to wait for the bike to come to a stop before attempting to dismount. I watched her crash a half-dozen times. My brother-in-law gave up and bought her a three-wheeled bike.
I have three kids. An older boy and twins (B/G) that turn 8 in a month. Both boys learned how to ride a two wheeler at about 4 1/2 - 5. My daughter still can’t do it. We have spent hours in the park but as soon as it wobbles a bit she stops pedaling, loses all momentum and tips over. She isn’t the most coordinated but does ballet, swims and played baseball for the last few years so has done some athletic stuff.
I have almost given up. The boys want to go on bike rides with me but she gets upset when she can’t come. Also, if home alone with them can’t leave her behind.
Any ideas from the collective brilliance here in the Lavender Room?
I have three kids. An older boy and twins (B/G) that turn 8 in a month. Both boys learned how to ride a two wheeler at about 4 1/2 - 5. My daughter still can’t do it. We have spent hours in the park but as soon as it wobbles a bit she stops pedaling, loses all momentum and tips over. She isn’t the most coordinated but does ballet, swims and played baseball for the last few years so has done some athletic stuff.
I have almost given up. The boys want to go on bike rides with me but she gets upset when she can’t come. Also, if home alone with them can’t leave her behind.
Any ideas from the collective brilliance here in the Lavender Room?
Thanks
Both my kids started at 3 and neither used training wheels. They were on pedalless bikes when they turned 2. Those things are fantastic.
Can she balance? Have you done the whole taking off the pedals and lowering the seat thing? Turn the bike into a strider so she can get confidence and learn balance before putting the pedals back on.
This. My daughter was 3 yrs old, ~30 lbs, ~3 ft and road a 2 wheeler. She road a balance bike for a few months and then all I had to do was explain how to pedal. Gave her a slight push and she road 100+ meters on the first try.
Training wheels are stupid. They don’t train anything other than how to pedal and they are a bitch going around corners. Balance is what is important.
Kids just sometimes do things in their own time. So you can spend weeks and a lot of frustration on it now or wait 2 years and teach her in 10 minutes.
My daughter learned to ride much much later than my son . . . but she did her first triathlon this summer, so good things happen eventually! I recommend doing this in a parking garage (gasp!).
Stage 1 - Have her straddle bike where she can comfortably put feet down on the ground. You stand somewhere down-ramp a bit. Have her push off and try to coast/glide to you. If she has to put feet down and stop before she makes it to you that’s ok. Adjust by you taking a position up the ramp a bit so you’re closer. Repeat until she can consistently coast to you in a straight line. Then lengthen the distance, and repeat until she’s mastered 10 “good” runs getting to you.
Stage 2 - Repeat the above, but this time her feet are on the pedals after she pushes off. Because it’s downhill she wont have to pedal at all, but she’s getting the hang of having her feet on the pedals. Stage 2 is learning to brake/stop. Instead of putting feet down to stop, she back-pedals to stop and/or uses the handlebar brakes. You may have to catch her a few times at first when she reaches you. Repeat until she’s mastered XX “good” runs.
Stage 3 - Repeat the above, but this time she has to pedal. Since she’s used to having her feet on pedals and braking (from stage 2), it’s not a big deal to extend the skill by pedaling a few cycles. Repeat until she’s mastered XX “good” runs. Voila! she’s riding a bike!
Stage 4 – Repeat the above, but this time it’s on flat ground in the parking garage. No more downhill ramp to get her going. Sit back and smile at your kid riding a bike!
Notes: The parking garage is great b/c the downhill ramps take care of initial momentum to get going. Trust the physics to help keep the bike upright. At the end of each run, with positive encouragement and tips, she couldn’t wait to try again and we’d sprint to the top of the ramp, get her setup again and repeat. (Bonus – the repeated sprints to start again also give you a workout).
Disclaimer – Obviously, do this in a deserted parking garage and on the straight sections between garage levels, not the helix ramps. But when we got home with big grins, we told wife (her mom) that we were on the Express Ramp and dodging cars the whole way
