Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Can Your Kid Ride A Bike?

Ha. Yeah, think I'll pass on those methods.

I did exactly what Val did an taught four kids one summer, including my four year old an a nine year old with some undiagnosed obvious issues. The trick is to use a bike that is too small. They don't peddle and they coast down a slight ramp. I always had them end in the grass jut incase. When coasting was easy, I had them try to peddle small bike. This always worked. When my four year old was ready I took off one training wheel. She rode her bike fo a week like that and then decided that the remaining wheel was in her way and asked me to take it off. Good luck. The child I taught to ride with the issues still doesn't ride very well. Her parents don't bring her often and she needed a lot of practice.

DS7 finally learned to peddle this summer. Last summer he would ride down my parents' drive, but couldn't peddle on flat ground. I think the coasting downhill helps a lot.

My DS7 (dyspraxia/dysgraphia) took a group class on learning to ride a bike with 3 other children who had similar issues. The OT had a great method and all the kids were riding independently at the end of the 6 classes. Here is what she did:

-no training wheels
-take off the pedals for the first 3 classes
-lower the seat so both feet are flat on the ground
-use a bike that is a bit too small for the child
-practice going around in a large circle (drawn in chalk, diameter of 10 feet or so) balancing and pushing along with the inside leg. Do this in both directions.
-practice doing s-shaped movements around pylons, so you have to switch balance from one foot to the other
-after the alternate foot balancing exercises described above, practice gliding with both feet held off the ground. Some kids found this scary, but the teacher was standing at the end to catch them if needed
-after a couple of weeks of this, she put the pedals back on and added the pedalling movement to the gliding exercise -- and they were biking!!

I almost cried when I saw the first boy who pedalled alone the length of the parking lot. He looked so happy and proud!

very cool, Verona!

Our ds never saw much of the allure of biking so that was always a hold up for him, plus he definitely felt it was dangerous so was basically afraid of failing off the bike. We don't have much of a great place to bike up here anyway, but finally when he was 10/11 a kid from scouts asked him to go on a vacation with their family and he had to learn to bike for that, so we just took him down to the park for an afternoon and he got it. Just needed some real reason to try for long enough to have it click.

Hi all, new here.
We had great success with the Go Glider. They come in all different sizes, from little kid to big kid. I would never try to teach another kid to ride a bike again without one. (Taking off the pedals is almost the same thing, although they say they build the glider a bit longer to lower the center of gravity.) Apparently in Europe, all the kids get these glider bikes from a very very young age, they don't use any training wheels at all which is kind of interesting.

Absolutely the key is to get your cihld a bike that is too small, like comically too small. The idea is if they feel themselves falling, they just stand up and the bike can roll out from under them.

next locate a safe place to bike that has a gentle incline. It doesn't have to be on grass if the bike is small and the incline is gentle. Stand the child at the top of the hill, sit him on the bike, and have him just scoot himself down to the bottom of the hill. No use of pedals at this point, just scooting (think Fred Flintstone car).

Gradually encourage your child to lift his feet off the ground as long as he feels like it. You could encourage him to count how long his feet ar off the ground...3 secs, 5 secs, ten seconds. The gentle incline should provide enough speed to keep him balanced for longer and longer periods of time.

All of this can be accomplished without removing the pedals from the bike if that's a pain. ust tell your child to keep his feet away from the pedals.

Your child will develop a sense of balance this way. When he's ready, you can raise the seat a bit, but stay on a small bike and move him to a flat, large area. Bike trails and sidewalks are no good for this next step as your child can't worry about going in a straight line. Church or school parking lots on a Saturday are a good place.

Still on the small bike have your child bike with you holding the back of his shirt and run after him. He can still scoot if he wants or you hold him and provide the motino while he pedals a bit. this part can be frustrating. It might help your child to practice pedalling on a stationary bike first, and it also helps to watch some YouTube videos of kids learning to bike.


After your child really masters biking while you hold him, then let him bike on his small bike around the parking lot. Don't think of graduating to a larger bike until he is very comfortable with a small one.

Bother I just lost my reply. I really disagree about putting them on a significantly too small bike, seat down so they can put their feet flat on the ground and use it like a float bike yes, undersized no. A bike that is too small is harder balance, pedal and control.

I would also add lots of practice "float style" on the surfaces they will ride on. Let them learn to balance and steer on your local paths until thy are really comfortable before adding in pedals as well. DD "rode" everywhere we went locally for months and this provided lots of natural, incidental practice and lots of confidence on those paths once she could ride.

I would highly recommend buying or borrowing a balance buddy from a friend. It completely saved my back and made my DS 100% confident that he was not going to die riding his bike. We took him to a large parking lot at the high school where there weren't any obstacles to hit or cars to worry about first. It was really difficult for him to trust that he wouldn't get hurt because he had taken a bad fall the first time at a friend's house.

Riding a scooter seemed to mess up his bike balance- I don't know why but to him they require very different balance. Swimming made his bike balancing far better! He was riding confidently at 7, about two to three years later than most of his friends. It took several months of practicing before he was very confident.

I found a convertible glide bike that is sized for older learners. It might be worth looking into.

http://www.glidebikes.com/SuperGlider/SG-20-S.html