How Can Parents Facilitate the Process of Riding a Bicycle For Children?
Parenting children at an early age or below six years may seem hard to you, especially if you are dealing with your first child. For example, it involves teaching and guiding them at various stages of life in a careful manner. Moreover, there is often a pressure to introduce them to essential skills needed for life. For instance, teaching them how to ride a bicycle is one of the significant activities.
Whether you child is in the stage of training wheels riding or if he/she has mastered this one stage and you are thinking of switching to the next stage, both the stages will require a lot of patience and you will be expected to know everything in addition to ensuring the safety of the child. If you are new at this, you may want to go through the following tips to make the transition or process of learning for your children smooth. In addition, it is imperative that you take the children through the whole process of learning to ride a bicycle in a systematic manner, as ride on toys and bicycle will require a series of instruction and steps to master the skills properly.
Skipping the Training Wheels Stage
Usually, parents prefer to go through the training wheels stage due to the concerns of safety for the children, however, if you skip this stage, it would help the children to ride a bicycle in a faster manner, as the confidence of the child will be enhanced by making mistakes and handling a big responsibility. For example, the training wheels aid the children in balancing; however, if they ride a bicycle without the help, the sense of balance can be enhanced better than the riding with training wheels. However, if you are concerned about the safety, you can get the children safety kit to protect them from injury or accidents.
Balance Bike
One of the benefits of this bike is that it teaches the kids to balance themselves on the bike in addition to steering. In simple words, two of the most significant pillars of learning to ride a bike can be improved if parents or children opt for this particular option. However, if you want a slightly affordable option, you may want to look for other options. If you have already bought the cycle, it means that the additional feature of brakes will be helpful in terms of managing the control and it underlines the better engineering of the bike design. Furthermore, this particular bike is easily available on various internet sites.
Lowering the Seat
This may sound new to some of the parents, however, research shows that lowering the seat for children will facilitate them to put the feet on the ground, which is one of the useful steps. Similarly, if the children know how to walk the bicycle, they learn to handle the bike in terms of familiarizing with the twists and turns one has to encounter while riding a bike. The main purpose of this step is to acquaint them with the complete process of riding a bike in a safe manner. If the feet of the child are on the ground, the chances of accidents are reduced to the large degree.
Practice on the Pavement
If your child has learned to make the turns in the correct manner, you can take them to practice the same strategy on the pavements as well. The logic is to increase the level of difficulty to help them master the skill. Also, it would help the child to handle the bike in a parking lot in the presence of different types of vehicles and real life experiences. However, it is important to work on the stage prior to the pavement one to guarantee the success.
Raising the Seat
Some of the parents shift to next stage of pedaling without realizing that they haven’t brought the child back to the increased level of the seat. As the logic of the parents is that lowered seat helps them to safeguard from accidents, however, it is often overlooked that the pedaling stage cannot be learned if the seat of the bike is not raised to a decent level. This means that the pedaling stages require space for the child to operate the bike and if the seat is lowered or the feet of the child are touching the ground, the kid will not be able to learn this stage. Ideally speaking, the toes of the children are expected to barely touch the ground or pavement rather than touching the ground. And some of the experts suggest that a child should be able to make a bent of ten degrees, this means that the ideal height of the seat should be facilitating in terms of providing a ten degree bent for the knees of a child.
Light Support
If you are one of the parents who think that holding the seat of your child’s bike will help to protect them, it is time for you to reassess your position because if you do that, the balancing for the child may become hard. This means that rather than holding the seat, parents can lightly support the child to provide the light push and support. Moreover, if you prefer to run alongside, it may help to quell your concerns related to the safety of the child. However, it is important that you don’t forget that teaching is a difficult to process; you are expected to support them until they develop strength and mastery to ride a bicycle.
Pleasant Mood
The progress of kids, in general, varies, especially if you are teaching them a new skill. Therefore, it is relevant to say that you should not compare your child with others, as kids learn at their pace, your child may learn it faster or slower than the peers. The key is to remain in the light mood so that your children are confident and they feel supported rather than feeling scared or anxious due to your temperament problems. Furthermore, the emotional stability will play an integral role in setting the tone for your relationship with your child.