Make 9 year old learn to ride a bike?

[SherbettAnna]

So DS is 9 now and hasn’t had a bike since he was about 4-5 (with training wheels) and he had a balance bike aged about 4.

We don’t live somewhere where he can just ‘ride his bike’ in the garden or outside the home. A bike wouldn’t fit in my little car so we would be limited to walking to a nice area he could ride to (I would walk him) once per week at the weekend. Wouldn’t be able to ride to school.

He isn’t bothered about a bike.
(He swims/ plays football x2 per week so it’s not like he’s not active).

I don’t know if I should spend money on a bike so he can learn to ride it eventually by practicing every weekend - only as I think he should be able to ride a bike.

YABU- Don’t get him a bike.

YANBU- he is 9 he should be able to ride a bike GO AND BUY ONE

All opinions welcome thank you.

I'm 57 and never learned to ride a bike. Don't want to. I'm very active in lots of other ways.

There are two things to cycling: balance and pedalling. Use a balance bike or a normal bike with pedals off. Learn to push and balance. Once balance is properly learnt (ie balancing for a long old while), introduce the pedalling.

With my kids I found getting them to go down a slight slope helped them get up the momentum needed to balance while they started to pedal. Luckily there was one in the park behind our house, which also had that soft, rubbery surfacing that is so useful if things do go wrong.

It wasn’t for the 30 odd years I didn’t have a car. It’s not for all the pensioners who have to give up driving. Just accept it’s not essential and I’ll stop posting.

It is essential if you don’t have a car or can’t drive.
I am passionate about cycling. I have 3 different bikes and eyeing up another one.
My sons are keen cyclists, one loves gravel, the other mountain. Dh is not.

Personnly I dont think it's an essential skill.
I think it's a good skill to have though.
I have several friends who live by themselves and dont drive and dont / cant ride a bike.
They manage to get to work, one works 23 miles away and does shifts up until 10pm.
Uber, walking and trains are their modes if transport.

The comments about life skills are giving me a chuckle. It's a life skill in the same way swimming or driving a car later. Not necessarily needed. Non swimmers tend to not put themselves in danger once they realise the danger. Car driving, well we all know rosks, far more dangerous for a 17 yr old but still encouraged particularly on MN. Riding a bike gives kids a little more independence, as a child I spent a lot of time out with friends riding bikes, they were part of our games, as I git older, went to clubs and cycled the 9 miles to school because I preferred it to sitting on a bus. I guess depending on area, traffic would be a concern, round here there's a lot of cycle lanes which help. Im considering getting a pedal assist ebike ( legal) ti get to work. The car traffic is so slow its so congested. So to answer I would encourage it but you need to model it by getting out yourself. Ps..sorry for typos, for some reason I can't edit once I've written without deleting back to mistake!

What does he want? Does he want to learn to ride a bike? If he wants to learn 100% go for it, if he doesn't he will get through life without knowing how to ride a bike. My parents never even got me a balance bike, then got me a big bike at 10 and tried to force me to learn, they was less than impressed that I didn't learn and to this day I don't know how to ride a bike. It's not essential.

Maybe not an essential skill but definitely a useful one. Imagine group of kids going out on bikes and yours is the only one who can't ride. There was a boy like that in my brother's group of mates. He missed out on so much as well as being taken the piss out of

I think what's really frustrated me about bikes is that if you go back a few generations learning to ride a bike represented freedom. It meant you could bike to a friend's house or go on a local outing with friends. Now the age at which we let kids do these things just keeps going up.

If you want your kids to ride a bike it's yet another thing that parents have to facilitate by finding safe places to do so, transporting the bikes by car etc.

"Once they realise the danger" is not applicable to small children though, so it keeps them safer if they at least know how to doggy paddle/float.
Riding a bike is not a survival skill in the same way. Although both are fun for children to do.

Local councils often offer Bikeability courses

Local councils often offer Bikeability courses
The child has to be able to ride.
Bikeability is about getting children( and in some cases adults )to ride safely on roads, teaching them how to ride in traffic, deal with junctions sto do controlled and sudden stops etc.

Some councils may do 'Learn to Ride ' sessions though

I don’t think it’s an essential skill as clearly many people manage without but I do think it’s a skill worth learning if possible.

My DC have both really struggled to learn (still not great at all) and we live in a city centre so it’s a faff getting somewhere appropriate to practice but we’ve always made sure they’ve had the right size bikes and kept encouraging them.

I think it’s good to put in the effort if possible.

It’s a useful skill. And once you learn, you really don’t forget. I used a bike everywhere when I lived in Cambridge. I’d quite often pop up to London with it, so I could cycle from Kingscross to numerous places. I didn’t ride a bike much as a child as we lived in a very unfriendly biking part of the world, but every holiday we’d rent bikes and go for long early morning rides, picnic breakfasts and then hangout by the beach or river all day, before heading back to our accommodation. I’ve carried on that tradition and every summer holiday we rent bikes wherever we are staying. We’ve found some absolutely stunning near deserted beaches by having bikes (too far to walk, not on the public transport route). A bike can give you a huge amount of freedom.
plenty of second hand bikes. We got a couple off freecycle when the kids were young.

Yes definitely get the bike. We lived in flats in built up areas for years and so I didn't get my DS a bike. But when he was ten I just thought he has to know how to ride a bike in life. So I got him one, no training wheels and he fell a few times but he mastered it in one afternoon

Ahh, but if they are too young to assess the danger they won't be out without adult supervision and as most kids these days aren't out playing at younger ages the dangers are reduced.

Neither of my (now grown) children can ride bikes. They weren’t especially interested, one even had a brand new bike bought for him once. We don’t ride bikes as parents either (though I can). It’s certainly not considered an essential life skill in this family. Unlike swimming. Both my kids swam like fishes from an early age, because I do consider that essential.

I realised this is old, but I hope you see this.

Riding a bike is a life skill akin to swimming, and it gets harder to learn the older you get. Your child will definitely regret not learning to ride if they don’t learn.

I do I think it’s a life skill. I spent a random year in a Dutch university as an Erasmus student and there was one British girl who didn’t know how to ride it was really limiting for her.

Lots of times as an adult I’ve ended up on a bike ( I’m not an enthusiast) it’s easier to supervise bigger kids on bikes from a bike iyswim

It’s not generational. I’m in my 70s, my husband is 80, and we and all our friends can ride a bike. A couple choose not to as they’ve never enjoyed it.

I’ve cycled all my life, and there have been times when it’s made a massive difference to jobs I could take, or hours I could work, but it’s not essential. I wouldn’t have died without it, just been inconvenienced and/or poorer. It’s definitely a useful skill , and I’d push any kid to learn.

It’s essential here, for commuting, getting to the pub. I’ve even arrived at posh events by bike - me in my best frock and DH in his DJ. I just need a clothes peg to stop my dress getting caught in the back wheel. It was a great way for the DC as teens to get around. No need for lifts from parents. Definitely worth the effort to teach him to ride a bike.

Totally flabbergasted at firstly a child can get to the age of 9 and not ride a bike and secondly people don't think it is an essential skill. It sure is. Bet lots of people who don't think it is essential actually think a driving licence is essential. I'm beyond comprehension I really am.
Both mine did it aged 3 and use their bike daily to see friends, go to school etc. Yes I admit not in the UK but still this doesn't sit right with me.

It’s a life skill. It’s clearly not essential as many people like me don’t possess it yet lead perfectly normal lives. My life would also continue to be normal if I had to stop driving, it would just be slightly less convenient.

For me, it’s a bigger deal if my bike is out of action, than if my car is out of action. For that reason, we have six in the garage.

I think it’s an important skill and I’d feel like I’d failed my child if they couldn’t ride a bike tbh.

Yes I've never understood parents driving teens about rather than them cycling