Go Ahead and Get Your Child’s Cycling Lessons
You can see teaching your child to ride a bike as a rite of passage, a sacred experience that culminates in the epic moment you wipe away your tears as Little Adele or Brady pedaled into youthful freedom. Wonderful. But you can also look at the assignment with fear – all you can imagine is back pain, tears for the child and suffering around. It is no shame for the latter group to enroll their child in cycling lessons.
Recently I heard parents talking about children’s cycling workshops offered by REI and other companies, and immediately I thought, “ What? Do you mean this is something you can outsource ?! “You can, and many do so. Some swear that after weeks or months of struggling to teach their children on their own, they finally sent them to class, and within hours these children learned for free. Instructors may use techniques that you may not have heard of, and for many children, there is something in a structured curriculum (taught by someone who is not a mom or dad) that pushes them out of their comfort zone.
Here are some places to teach your child how to ride a bike.
- REI offers How to Ride a Bicycle for children 6-9 years old. Students must bring their bikes with their training wheels removed. Please visit the cycling company page in your area for details.
- The YMCA occasionally offers free cycling workshops.
- There are many local cycling programs for kids – visit Pedalheads Bike Camp in Canada, Colorado, Illinois, Oregon and Washington; Bicycle Habitat in New York; CICLE LA and Bicycle Kitchen in Los Angeles; and Wheel Kids Cycling Club in Northern California.