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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be shocked at this?

278 replies

upsideup · 03/05/2018 17:47

DS1 has two friends round for dinner tonight, ones 8 and ones 9 and they have gone outside to play with bikes/scooters etc and both of his friends dont own a bike and have never been taught to ride one before and its not just them they all mentioned several other friends who cant as well.
I thought riding a bike was a still a pretty normal skill that all children had learnt to do by now.

AIBU to be shocked at this? Do most 8/9 year olds not know how to ride a bike?

OP posts:
triwarrior · 05/05/2018 15:54

I haven’t said anywhere that I think people whose children can’t ride a bike are “inherently lazy” or that people who don’t live exactly like me are somehow lacking in their parenting. But what I do see a lot of on Mumsnet is an attitude of “this is more effort than I’m willing or able to make, and anyone who suggests that I could or should make an effort is a snob, and my life is so much harder than theirs, and, and, and.” It all gets a bit too Four Yorkshireman for my liking.

SinceWhenDid · 05/05/2018 16:12

Interestingly when discussing this with friends who work at outdoor centres and they say that more of the children who go to fee-paying schools can't ride bikes/don't have bikes than those from poorer backgrounds.

Imabadmummy · 05/05/2018 17:24

Both my DS can do bikes with stablisers. Eldest (nearly 7) really needs a new bike (one we have is just too small for him now) and i think im gonna try get him a 2nd hand one to try teach him without stablisers. Thats our summer goal.

Some of his friends can ride without aid but some cant.

3out · 05/05/2018 19:20

Ours can’t cycle. We have no safe space locally where they could learn. The town doesn’t have a park, but there is a skatepark. The problem is getting there. We couldn’t fit all three bikes in the car. Supervision wise, we’d both need to be there, but we work opposite shifts and don’t have a day off together except if one of us takes annual leave.

We’re moving house soon and it has a garden which is suitable for cycling/learning to cycle though. This will make learning do-able.

The school runs cycling proficiency in P6 (I think it’s P6 anyway), but that doesn’t teach learning to cycle, it teaches road safety for cyclists. Got two years before they reach P6 so 🤞

Delphinius · 05/05/2018 19:30

Think it depends on parents tbh. We both cycle a lot so DS just wanted to be part of the gang. He was cycling properly at 3, bike with gears at 4.

TheHandmaidsTail · 05/05/2018 21:58

Oh I'm a hideous snob, but I am not a lazy parent Wink

PickwickThePlockingDodo · 05/05/2018 23:56

they say that more of the children who go to fee-paying schools can't ride bikes/don't have bikes than those from poorer backgrounds.
That is interesting, I wonder why that is?

AjasLipstick · 06/05/2018 01:11

Pickwick I noted that when my DD was at a prep school in England. I think it's because of parents working long hours and children being ferried to and from activities in their spare time. Much less free time in general.

melj1213 · 06/05/2018 02:29

My DD is 9 and only learned to ride a bike last summer. It wasn't because I was a lazy parent or didn't want to spend money but because of practicalities.

Up until a couple of years ago we lived in Madrid, in a city centre apartment on a very busy main road. There was nowhere to store a bike, we didn't have a car as public transport is so easy/cheap to use (so no car to put a bike in to go to the nearest park) and we lived too far from the big parks to walk a bike there to practice and then walk it home again (and there was no way I would let DD ride on the roads in the city)

For this reason DD never learned to ride a bike until we moved back to my home town which is a rural town in the Lake District with lots of parks and open areas within walking distance of our house and I have a car to transport the bikes in to said open spaces to practice.

Isadora666 · 06/05/2018 14:10

Why is it a key life skill?! When would you ever be disadvantaged by not being able to ride a bike?

You can get through life without being able to swim, drive or cook but there are definitely situations where not being able to do so would put you at a disadvantage so I can see why people say they are all key life skills. But riding a bike?! Explain! Hmm

Idontbelieveinthemoon · 06/05/2018 14:16

DS1's friend learned to ride a bike last summer, so he must have been around 10/11. His parents had tried repeatedly and each time it caused huge meltdowns for them all so eventually gave up. Last summer DS1 was out with him on the fields at the back of our house and taught his mate to do it. I think the combination of DS1's low-level peer pressure and the fact that DS1 wasn't his Parent so didn't have the level of over-investment meant he could practise without stress. He cycled home one day on DS1's bike and that was that.

I do wonder sometimes if DS1 hadn't done it if he'd have just become an adult who can't cycle. I doubt it would have had any effect on his life but it's lovely to see them out on their bikes each day now they're both at it.

DS1 has dyspraxia which meant that riding a bike never came naturally to him. He's stubborn as a mule, though, so forced himself to work it out at age 4. DS2 asked when he was 3 how old DS1 was when he'd first ridden without stabilisers and because he wanted desperately to beat his big brother, he rode without stabilisers at 3. Sibling rivalry gave a great result in bike riding here!

catinapoolofsunshine · 06/05/2018 14:44

Isadora it depends where you live. Where I live kids are at a disadvantage if they can't ride a bike because when 4-9 they'd be the only one unable to play out on bikes, and at age 10 plus the only one not able to ride to friends in the surrounding villages. Throughout secondary, until they have cars or (terrifyingly) mopeds, the kids here all cycle to friends houses. You could say they could walk, but when the next village is 4 miles away that's an hours walk each way but only 10 minutes for a healthy pre teen/ teen on a bike.

So here it's a disadvantage to children not to cycle, and because people are in the habit a lot continue to cycle as adults.

catinapoolofsunshine · 06/05/2018 14:47

Also as part of my initial training in my current job we had to do a brief observed drive in one of the car pool cars and set up and ride the tandem electric bike so as to be able to take clients out on it, and there wasn't even a question about whether we could ride a bike, it was assumed.

ColdTattyWaitingForSummer · 06/05/2018 15:06

My youngest can't at 11. I'm not a lazy parent I'm a disabled one (and a single one). He doesn't want to learn, and while I'd prefer he did, I'm not sure how to make that happen. People shouldn't judge.

Abbylee · 06/05/2018 15:10

Re: life skills, swimming vs bikes

My niece borrowed a bike at a park. "Rode" it down a hill into a tree and cracked her skull. She didn't really know how to ride, managed to stay on until she crashed.
(Yes, I think her parents were idiots. NO, I do not let my dc out without helmets even though they can drive cars. I'm like s flapping hen yelling at them if I see them without helmets on anything that can crash)
I associate bike riding skills with other skills where you have a chance of injury if you go with friends and don't know how to do what they are doing.

Skiing, skating, and horseback riding are also on the list of things I nearly hurt myself doing bc i had no idea how but tried anyway.

Regarding dc swimming skills and drowning in open water, that's pushing it? Oceans are not pools, undertows and waves are the first clue. I don't think knowing that you are a great pool swimmer encourages ocean swimming.

However, there are classes for all water swimming that detail life saving techniques like floating in ponds if tangled in weeds, swimming along the coast in an undertow.

smilingontheinside · 06/05/2018 17:26

Why are some being so rude to the op for asking a question? When I was growing up we all had bikes and ere taught to ride them at school and I grew up on a hard up council estate. Kids shared bikes and had hand me downs as did I. Bothered my kids were taught to ride bikes even though now grown up neither do. Many of the kids where I live ride to school (like bloody maniacs though) & there are a lot of " lycra louts" causing traffic jams on the way too and from work most days. So I for one would still think many/most kids have or can ride a bike like the OP and don't consider myself rude for thinking it Hmm

smilingontheinside · 06/05/2018 17:27

Both my kids flippin autocorrect Blush

Lethaldrizzle · 06/05/2018 17:31

I cycle every day so I think its a hugely beneficial life skill however I did not cycle as a child as we couldn't afford bikes

PollyMycroft · 07/05/2018 22:48

I'm quite surprised by so many saying their DCs cannot ride...I'm clearly out of touch. DC1 could ride properly at 4, DCs 2 and 3 by the time they were 6. (Balance bikes when very young helped with this.) We have lived rurally and in towns in that time. DC1 currently cycles 6 miles a day (school journey). I just assumed it was a life skill they needed to have. They have so much fun cycling.

Goldilocks3Bears · 07/05/2018 23:47

Yes Polly, you are out of touch. It’s not a life skill.

AjasLipstick · 08/05/2018 06:19

Goldilocks perhaps it's not as useful as swimming but I tell you what...when my SIL was diagnosed with epilepsy at age 24 and could not drive anymore...she was never so glad that she could ride well and confidently.

Had she had to learn to ride a bike aged 24, it might not have been so simple.

Also, fitness is terrible in general so the more on bikes, the better! Cleaner air too.

catinapoolofsunshine · 08/05/2018 06:35

Of course it's a life skill!

Not an "essential" life skill (neither is swimming unless you live somewhere there is a serious danger of drowning in fairly calm water - swimming pool swimming won't save you if you're washed out to sea).

Essential life skills might include basic financial skills (being able to use money - cash, cards, and bank accounts, to shop, pay bills and understand whether you've been paid correctly), a very basic understanding of nutrition and the fact that you'll get ill if you only eat hotdogs... Being able to do laundry and other basic tasks around the house, basic literacy to allow you to read notices and fill in forms...

However most people want their children to also have skills that allow them to make the most of their life - that's where cycling is as much a life skill as swimming and later driving. Not absolutely can't live without it essential, but potentially useful or life enhancing in an ordinary way.

AjasLipstick · 08/05/2018 06:39

Cat I did think that....in fact MOST people are more likely to run into situations where a bike would be useful ....more than people likely to have to save themselves from drowning!

Biologifemini · 08/05/2018 06:42

I thought it was just a fashion for scooters.
It is a useful life skill and a money saving one, plus good exercise.
I taught my child at a business park which was pretty empty at the weekends - as we just don’t have good enough outside space.

PickwickThePlockingDodo · 08/05/2018 09:02

Yes Polly, you are out of touch. It’s not a life skill.
Bit rude.
Funny how the posters on this thread that have not taught their children to ride a bike are so rude defensive.

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