Teach Your Child To Ride A Two-Wheeler In 6 Hrs or Less

(There are 3 tips below that we’ve learned from various friends- below in Bold).  Pass it on…

It’s been in the 70’s here in beautiful Shanghai… so the kids on our street love to get out (there are about 13 in our friendly cul-de-sac).  We are lucky to always have great neighbors…

Of the 7 houses on our end of the street--

2 families are from Hong Kong,

3 from the US,

1 from Belgium (whose daughter has dreadlocks, and she makes the best waffles that are more like fortune cookies, you would adore them too!!).

1 from Finland (Sisu’s family, if you remember.  Sajia, his mom just added boy #3 last week, soooo cute!).

Anyway, it’s Spring, and it’s time and the kids get out to ride their several different wheeled toys.  Here (above) Alex’s mom is teaching her daughter to ride the ‘Ripstick’.  Notice Hunter in the background falling off his little bike.

Her kids are a bit older than mine, and one day she saw Tim and I trying to teach Hunter to ride his bike w/o training wheels.

We were at it for a few hours, and she suggested (here comes her brilliance):

“Don’t hold on to the seat, use a towel.  It teaches them to balance on their own.”

She said a neighbor had taught her that, and so now I’m passing it to you bloggers….

So we tried it.  It only took two afternoons, and that was it!!  No training wheels for Hunter!

And yes, by the way…  I chopped the ‘woodstock’ flash back hair is off to ‘Locks of Love’, who now takes dyed hair.  It was waaaay too long.  All my friends know I chop it shorter with each new baby that comes into the home- so here you are Miss AnnaLeigh.

 

Here we are.  This is Hunter posing while riding (clever).  And me trying to wave.  Sloth style.

   

Determination!!  Oh, and by the way, another friend (Allyson Davidson, also lives in China)told me about a new book called ‘The Nurture….(shoot, just forgot the other half of the title!)”. 

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted on the title.  It’s one of the most current Parenting books out, and the entire book goes through and corrects the most common parenting mistakes (of our time) through study groups and statistics. 

The most common mistake for our time is to say “Good Job” to your child (according to this book). 

Guilty!

Better it is to say “I can see you are being really determined.  Wow!  Look at that effort”.  Then children shift the focus of  being inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad’ at something to focusing on the part they do have control over.

So I tried to never say “good job” or any of those types of compliments for this bike riding project.  And wouldn’t you know, the ENTIRE time he was learning, he never once got frustrated or discouraged!?!?  Wow.  The focus was on the effort and not on the end result or final critique.

Here’s Hunter riding off into the sunset, that confident little boy.

The next morning (yesterday, Saturday, here in China), Hunter rode his bike all the way to the restaurant for ‘father and sons’ Saturday morning breakfast. 

 

While we are on the theme of learning things from other families…

It was the Mecham Family (Jared & Sandy) that shared with Tim their tradition of ‘father and sons’ Saturday morning breakfast… over 6 years ago when we lived in New York.

SO, now I close with many thanks to you bloggers for all the tips you’ve shared with us through your blogs, I could go on for days.  You are some of the smartest moms out there!!