Learn to Ride a Bicycle

I have been wanting to teach my Genz Kid how to ride a bicycle but never succeed as he was too afraid to ride one without the training wheel. 

Last Sunday, we brought him a bicycle (with training wheels) as an early birthday present for him.  He was thrilled and was having fun with his new “toy” until yesterday, a few aunties laughed at him when they saw him riding the bicycle with training wheels.  He was embarrassed and felt a bit down.  I told him it was okay and the next time if someone makes fun of him because that, just tell them that you will remove the training wheel when you are ready. 

I recalled how I learnt to ride a bicycle when I was young.  In fact, my brothers & I were “trained” to ride a two-wheels bicycle when we were about 5 years old.  I remembered our parents just told us to get on the bikes, then they would push us for a short distance, let go their hands and off we go…  we fell down, cried a bit and then get up and try again ….  

Today, I done some research on the internet and found some useful information on “teaching your kids to ride a bicycle”.    I was surprised to note that our old way of learning to ride a bicycle is difficult and dangerous.  The more “friendly” way is to remove the paddle or put the paddle down a little so that your feet can touch the ground.   Let them go down a gentle slope….  Eventually, with practice, they will still learn how to ride a two-wheels bike but I think we should try to let the learning journey be as pleasant as possible.

Reading materials:

http://www.bikehash.freeservers.com/learn.html

http://www.ibike.org/education/teaching-kids.htm

http://www.articlesbase.com/travel-tips-articles/teach-your-child-to-ride-a-bicycle-the-safe-way-to-learn-to-ride-840173.html