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.

Apparently they lived nowhere near a skiing area but it was an important life skill to enable them to ‘fit in’

I suppose if you want to hob knob with a certain type of crowd that's going to come with a list of different essential skills.

I was at school in the 60s. I couldn't ride a bike and I definitely wasn't mortified. Where I lived the LA gave kids a free pass to swimming pools if the could swim, different lengths for different ages. Not being able to swim for free was a bit of a stigma

Its an essential skill in my country, literally in the list of milestones for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. But that's cross-country skiing, not downhill, and its essential as everyone has to do it every single year in school.

I understand that but not so much when you live in England - you might want to learn but like driving, cycling and swimming it’s not that important

That’s seriously crap though. Our school did try to teach us to swim but I never was able to do it (1980s)

And when the school did cycling proficiency there were never many takers even though kids were always out on their bikes

My mil can’t swim, lived a perfectly normal life and is 86. Doesn’t mean it’s not a life skill that is useful

But people aren’t saying it is ‘useful’ - they are claiming it’s ‘essential’

I think it was seen as an incentive to get you swimming and it did work for most. I think at primary school you needed to be able to swim a width, doggy paddle was acceptable. School holidays the pools were packed. If you were lucky your mum gave you sixpence for a hot chocolate when the swim was over.

I don’t think it was an incentive - I certainly couldn’t do a width even now. I used to go to a public pool back in the day but never learnt to swim.

Riding a bike is an essential life skill.

I think you are confusing essential with useful. I live in the Netherlands but London born and bread and I learnt to ride in the Netherlands in my forties (took lessons with 6 year old DD) but I don’t cycle because it isn’t my thing. DD however cycles everywhere because it is her thing, even when she had free public transport she chooses to cycle in all weathers.

OP are you practising what you preach?

Swimming is another essential skill here, as you are never far from open water, there's been a lot of concern lately about immigrants moving here and not knowing how to swim, and efforts to teach them, especially after some tragic drownings. Another one you do every single year in school. Considering the UK is an island, with a lot of access to open water, it should probably be considered essential too.

Driving is something that can be essential, it depends on public transport in your area - if its non existent then you need to drive, if it's good then you don't.

Yes we are an Island but big enough not to come into contact with water on a daily basis.

I can’t drive well enough to be able to pass my practical so it’s cheaper and safer to rely on public transport and Uber.

I guess it’s not an essential life skill in the fact it’s not something that might keep you alive vs not, but it’s certainly one of those jobs as a parent to do of at all possible. Imagine going on camp in the last year of primary and being the only one unable to ride a bike so not able to join an activity or being invited for a ride or to the local bike track with pals and having to tell them you can’t. As PP’s have said bikability at school needs basic riding skills and very few can’t ride. Struggling to picture a scenario where there is just nowhere locally to ride too. Also DC’s bikes fit fine in my small car with wheel popped off but I did end up buying a cheap bike rack to save the faff when they started enjoying the pump tracks

If there was no public transport or uber where you live you might find you have to drive. I only learnt to drive a few years ago, prior to that it wasn't essential for me and I was terrified anyway but I had to learn a few years ago as I was planning to work somewhere that was too far and too dangerous to cycle and no reliable buses so I had to force myself to face my fear and learn. So wasn't essential for most of my life then suddenly became essential.

Kids that can't ride a bike can miss out on so much and feel really left out. For instance one class in DS's primary school had a class trip last week that was cycling along a nature trail - if any child couldn't ride a bike they'd have missed out and have to stay in school in another class.

I think this is super area dependent though. My kids’ schools would never have an activity like this as too many kids would need to miss it. They were meant to have bikeability this term (but had to cancel) and they have 10-12 bikes at the school as almost half the class doesn’t own one. Loads of kids can’t ride a bike and have no access to one so they split up and those kids try to learn while they ones who can learn road safety etc. There were around 10 non swimmers as well when they had their 6 weeks of swimming in p5. They’re still non swimmers of course.

Most primary schools do cycling proficiency in year 5 or 6..How would he cope with being left out?

My ds and his friends used to cycle off on days out at 13 & 14.

We live a few miles outside town and, now 17, ds has a Saturday job. His bike enables him to get around without needing me to drive him. In Sept he goes to uni and both his choices are car free universities that provide bike lockers for students. In teens and early twenties, cycling can be important, economically & socially.

@liveforsummer The lack of safe places to cycle, learn to ride and develop better cycling skills was recognised by British Cycling, who delivered a 'Places to Ride' programme trying to address some of the barriers to people cycling more. The infrastructure in some places creates a rather hostile environment for cyclists (and often pedestrians, too), and a beginning cyclist isn't going to be cycling very far. There will be lots of homes in the UK where kids can't just learn to cycle on their road, or on the next side road. There are lots of small towns where there's no good cycle parking (where you could lock up a £500 bike and be confident it'll be there on your return).

@PurpleThistle7 I agree. Our local schools have put elective funding into ensuring all the kids can cycle by the time they leave primary, because they see cycling as a life skill, enabling older children and teens to get about independently further afield than they could do on foot, and helping the kids to see each other out of school once they're at secondary and making friends from the other end of town and out of town. And as @Meadowfinch has mentioned it also helps the older teens access work opportunities further afield. And then there are the all the health, money-saving and sustainability benefits of cycling vs walking.

My son (Various forms of ND including dyspraxic) did a learn to ride course at the beginning of the year. After 4 sessions he was riding relatively confidently and it turns out he absolutely loves it and its now something we do together, its "our" thing as my husband cannot ride a bike, never learnt as a kid. My son can't quite be trusted to ride along roads/near open water etc. yet but we chuck the bikes on the car and head somewhere safe like one of the National cycle routes or similar. Circular rides, or an out-and-back (usually to a park or something!) are his favourites.

It's not just taught him to ride a bike. It's taught him so many other things, like perseverance and resilience (you fall off, you patch yourself up and get back and carry on again), and he had a huge sense of achievement when he managed to get the hang of it.

This thread is so sad. Shows how we have built infrastructure for cars not for people. I don’t think it’s an essential skill but it’s one almost all kids can learn in a couple of hours. Even my sister learned in 2 hours as an adult when she moved somewhere with better infrastructure and wanted to get around cheaply. I’d offered her my old bike.

it’s a useful skill for the future even if awkward now. On holidays, going to work, trips or sporting events etc. Plus cycling gives kids independence and stops them being mere passengers but active participants.

cycljng regularly has major health benefits and is a quick way to get around so learning now means your DS would be more likely to access these benefits confidently by taking all opportunities to hone skills as they grow up.

my DS could ride a bike from age 3. He’s cycled to school every day (we used to ride with him), on holiday he can go off with other kids on bikes and he does a paper round before school now he’s 14. He can confidently cycle in traffic and this means we’ve got more options transport wise. Last year we cycled around Holland. We’ve done regular day trips in France without the need to hire a car and this year we’ll cycle to Kings Cross, get the Eurostar, cycle across Paris and get the train to a campsite where we’ll use our bikes to go to beaches and villages. Saves a lot of money on car hire. We live on London and although our area doesn’t have many cycle paths because we are competent we can navigate routes confidently.

I think there’s a lot of perception that cycling isn’t safe and there’s certainly some routes I wouldn’t do but with practice and skill there’s a lot of places that are mkre accessible by bike than you think.

Yes but that’s mainly referring to commuting/cycling a distance. I was interested what OP’s challenger were (rural/inner city etc) as a small space to learn to balance is all that’s needed initially. Sounds like there is somewhere suitable at least in walking distance anyway however a basic bike rack for the car would open up a lot more options in a simple manner.

Yeah definitely area dependent but as you never know if you might have to move to a new area it seems to me the wisest thing to do is to make sure your child can cycle and swim, if physically possible.

They have school bikes here too for children that don't have their own or forget theirs on a school trip day but I think that's probably rare that they're needed as its very normal for children to own their own bikes here as they all bike so much. There is an increase in children having poor swimming skills though, so they're increasing swimming lessons in lower primary school. But with lessons every year it's pretty hard not to learn at least basic skills unless they skip lessons by "forgetting" their kits (my understanding is that if they do that every time they will fail PE, which is why my teen that hates swimming makes sure she does at least one lesson a term)

It’s a good life skill so I would try and encourage him

Bikeability is in year 5 he’s going to terribly stand out if he can’t cycle at all…. I really think it’s one of those skills like swimming that as a parent you just have to suck up and teach your kids how to do it no matter how inconvenient or difficult it is