What would your child feel like if he or she received a Ride a Bike Award Certificate?
Learning to ride a bike is one of the biggest milestones in a kid’s life. To a child, it is a big personal feat – something they are going to remember for the rest of their life. Once your child learns how to ride a bicycle, they wouldn’t tire for a long time to share their thrill and feelings of the achievement with their peers. Most parents find it difficult to teach riding to their children. However, if you break the entire process into different steps, it will become much simpler and fun.
How To Ride a Bicycle
Follow these steps to teach your child how to start riding a bike.
Ideal Location
The first step to teaching your kid how to ride a bike is to look for a safe and open place. The perfect place is an open field or park with gentle slope and grass. There should be at least 50 yards of slope without any obstacles like trees, rocks or bumps. Make sure that the grass isn’t too tall.
Safety Precautions
The next step is to choose the proper safety gear for your child. This includes the following items:
- A properly fitting helmet
- Bright colored shirt or jacket
- A pair of gloves
Wearing proper safety gear helps your child feel safe. It is also important not to ride at dusk or after dark, and avoid loose or long clothing.
Teach One Skill at a Time
Learning to ride a bicycle involves learning different skills. This includes how to balance the bike, how to steer it, pedal, and apply brakes. You shouldn’t expect your kid to learn all these skills simultaneously but one at a time. The training should focus on one skill at a time and smoothly transition to the new one once your kid becomes comfortable with each new skill. This will simplify the process and you will be amazed how fast they learn to ride.
Balancing
Get on top of a slope and have your child take their feet off the ground so that the bicycle rolls down. Make sure to hold the bike’s seat to help steady it. If the bike doesn’t move, ask your kid to pedal. You will have to run alongside until you are confident that he can balance the bike. Always encourage your kid if he tumbles and get him back on the seat to try again.
Make it even simpler for your kid by starting on balance bikes that don’t have any pedals. Another strategy is to remove pedals from your kid’s bicycle.
Solo Riding
Once your kid can balance the bicycle, the next step is to get him to start riding solo. Teach your child how to get into the ready position. The ready position has the right pedal up and forward and your child should stomp it down to get moving. Get him to gain speed quickly to ensure that the stays balanced. Have your kid repeat this several times until he becomes comfortable doing it.
Initially, it may be required to hold the seat and run along as your kid places his feet on the pedal. Instruct him to keep the feet on the pedals as the bike moves down the slope, but to put the feet on the ground when the bike slows down or comes to a halt.
Pedaling
After a few runs, your child is going to feel comfortable with his feet on the pedals. Now get him into the ready position and start pedaling the bicycle down the slope. Once the kid gets a knack of it, ask him to ride up the slope.
Braking
The concept of braking should be taught even before your child starts riding solo. Ask your kid to walk alongside his bike and pull the brake levers. Ask him to squeeze the brake levers slowly to gradually bring the bike to a stop.
Your kid should start using the brake to stop the bicycle from the moment he learns how to balance it. Teach him to put the feet down when applying the brake to slow down or stop the bike.
Learning to ride a bike can take a day or several weeks. It is important to keep it fun and stop the training session once things become stressful. So follow the steps mentioned above and your child should well be on his way to earn his ‘I learned to ride a bike’ certificate.
Need some more help? Check out this Youtube video on riding a bike.
Ride a Bike Award Certificate
Put a smile on your kid’s face by awarding this snazzy certificate. Fill it out and let them hand it in their bedroom or on the fridge door.
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