To be a little worried about my five year old

[HannahBanana87]

She’s five and a half. Oh I know she’s only little and she is who she is. She is wonderful. She is kind and funny and affectionate and my best little pal in the whole world.

She is in P1 and one of the youngest in her class. She has made some friends at school but she’s very “young” compared to a lot of the girls in her class. Loves Paw Patrol, dolls, that sort of thing. The girls in her class are all into LOL dolls, zoom chats and drawing (DD enjoys drawing but her attention span is very short).

The latest thing is that we are trying to teach her to ride her bike without stabilisers. It’s a nightmare. She’s too frightened of falling off. The minute I let go of the bike her feet come down and she wobbles to a stop. Three full days at it and no improvement shown.

In the meantime kids a good year or two younger than her are cycling past her. Then we met a boy in her class who said “my bike is much bigger and I’ve been riding without my stabilisers for ages”. DD is too young and naive to feel any shame about it, thank goodness.

I know she’ll get it when she’s ready and I have no intention of trying to make her something she’s not. At the same time I don’t want her to be left behind. I don’t want her to be made fun of for being the baby.

Her three year old sister demonstrates a great deal more courage and independence than she does.

The bike is definitely confidence and personality rather than maturity. You worrying about it will be pick up by her too so I would say leave it and revisit in a few weeks. As regards being young, my almost 6 year old is too. Her 3year old sister and her like the same things: paw patrol, peppa pig, disney films, playing vets, imaginary barbie games, outdoor play, sandcastles on the beach, cartwheels, bike rides... long may it last I say!

My son is nearly 8 and he can't ride a bike properly.
My 13 year old still watches Peppa sometimes 🤣

Just on riding a bike, as she's keen...

The lighter the bike the better when they start. Have the saddle low enough so that she can easily touch the ground.

Taking the pedals off so that she can use it like a balance bike might help.

Otherwise, when you're helping her ride, have her put a jumper/hoodie/coat on and hold her by bunching the back of this up in your hand and holding her straight, rather than holding the bike.

This way. she'll learn to move her body weight and bike for balance, rather than leaning into whatever is holding the bike up, either you or stabilisers.

Start at the top of gentle slopes so that she doesn't have to worry about stopping when she forgets to pedal.

Oh God OP she sounds like me. I was always too timid to go to the top of the climbing frame, and it took my ages to learn to ride a bike. I might ask my DM tomorrow when I managed it, but it was definitely older than your dd. I did learn though and was absolutely fine with it as soon as it clicked.

There is a really funny episode of Frasier where it comes out that neither he nor Niles ever learned to ride a bike worth a watch if you have Amazon prime or somewhere you can get it.

I am a massive Frasier fan and I love that episode!

Interestingly my husband can’t ride a bike. I mean I think he could if he set his mind to it, but he never learned and truly believes that he can’t do it. He said he just spent his childhood playing football and was never interested 🤷🏻‍♀️

@HannahBanana87 I just don’t want her to be bullied. That’s really all it is. learning that it's okay to be different won't allow her to become a target for bullies OP. She mustn't follow the crowd in fear of what might never happen. She can be herself at all times. Teaching her to talk if she's being bullied is as important as teaching her not to be the bully, so let her just be herself. You sound like a very caring mom, she'll be grand.

My DD is 13 and has just started cycling! She refused to continue learning to ride a bike when she was younger as she just couldn't get the hang of it and had no real desire to do it. My DS was riding without stabilisers at 4 and I had expected that she would be the same but she just didn't have the same enthusiasm for it.

When the lockdown was relaxed, my DS started meeting a friend for a bike ride every day and DD suddenly decided it would be a fun thing to do with her friend. So I bought her a bike and, with a bit of help from her brother, she taught herself to ride it in two days riding around our driveway and then went on a two mile ride with her friend (on a cycle path with no cars) and was absolutely fine - no wobbles at all. I've taken her out a few times on the road and made sure that she knows all the things I learnt in my cycling proficiency (42 years ago!). She's so confident now, it's like she's been riding a bike since she was little. She just needed to learn in her own time :)

I live in Colorado, and to hear most parents talk, their children were riding their bikes (and skiing!!) before they could read properly! Gah.

As long as her GP/pediatrician says her balance is fine, let it go.
Neither of mine liked balance bikes.
And neither of mine were interested until they were 5 (DS) and 7 or 8 (DD). They are now both champs.

You say she loves to be babied and would love doing nothing for herself?
^ Happily, this is something you can change! Good luck!

Sounds normal to me. My DD is 5.5 and she still plays with a lot of her toys from a couple of years ago, still watches cbeebies, cannot ride a bike (that's my fault really,).

Compared to her class of 30, none of this is unusual. We tried a few zoom talks and where some of them were confident chatting away, the majority were not.

I'm certainly not going to push anything or worry about it - I want her to stay this little forever!

Think of potty training - when they're ready, they're ready, and there's not much point persisting with something if they're not. She'll let you know when she's ready to move on.

I've just seen your comment about your own school experience. This seems to be your issue and you need to try and get a grip of that, and try not to let it influence your parenting. I think you're reading too much into things, being over sensitive and your worry is preventing you from enjoying who she is.

In addition, no matter how you worry or try to control things, kids will get picked on. You can't control it.

If youre really anxious about it, i think what might help you is to teach your child about resilience, kindness, how people are different, etc, rather than worry about her fitting in. You don't want to be passing issues onto her.

Don't worry too much, I imagine she's far from the only child in her class that can't ride a bike yet, I understand your fears though as bullying can have such an impact on children so we want to do everything in our power to make sure it doesn't happen, Instead of focusing on the things that you think will get her picked on and focus on teaching her how to react and deal with the situation should it occur (it might not)

It's really hard as a parent not to look around us and see what other children are doing compared to our own, we have all done it at some point, but you must remember in your daughters school year, there could be children nearly a year older than her, and at the age she is at now that makes a huge huge difference! My husbands birthday is 26th August, so was the youngest person in his year, he was (and still is) friends with people who celebrate their next birthday a week or two after his, and you wouldn't know there were any developmental differences as children now they're adults

My 5 year old daughter is in reception. We've tried class/ friends zoom calls and it doesn't work (for any of them!) so that sounds unusual to me. She does like drawing and can ride a bike, but as others have said we started her off with a balance bike and she has a very light bike. She was also the first of her friends to be able to ride a bike, and the next few are only just starting to be able to now (they are 5.5). DD loves Cbeebies, paw patrol, plays with dolls all day long and I don't think that's particularly unusual. Her friends are mainly the same. The ones that are a bit 'older' usually have older siblings. Five is still really young! I don't understand the rush to get them to grow up.