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.

My 35 year old son has never had an interest in riding a bike and he has grown into a perfectly well adjusted and happy adult. It’s not important.

Why is it important to ride a bike?! Swimming I agree is important but my son (now 35) never wanted a bike and it hasn’t hindered him socially!

It’s a lovely skill to learn - fresh air, exercise and the sense of being independent, being able to get yourself around. I loved cycling when I was a kid. I think it’s an important skill to teach your children.

Where I live they get 6 weeks of swim lessons in P5 - that's it. And 6 weeks of bikeability in P5 (though not for my son's class due to staff absence). I live in a super hilly city with a high rate of poverty. Loads of kids wouldn't have access to a pool, or anywhere to put a bike they couldn't afford anyway. There are loads of buses and kids walk / bus anywhere they need to go in the city - you wouldn't send a child biking off here anyway until they were at least in high school.

To be clear, I have prioritised this for my kids and they have bikes and my husband takes them on bike rides a few times a year (they go out of the city) and they have had swimming lessons for years, but I'm lucky and they're lucky - plenty of their friends don't have this sort of access. So if it's a school more like mine, a child not riding a bike wouldn't be noticed at all. If it's more of a suburban setup with everyone riding bikes around, I think it's important socially to encourage your child to try to learn.

I'm sorry you couldn't learn to swim but it did encourage us. The fact it isn't 100% successful doesn't mean it doesn't work for many. I grew up in a deprived inner city area, our free entertainment was the library where we would often meet up and get free books to read, the park where we would play and the swimming pool. In summer we would go more than once a week which meant once we could do that width of doggy paddle we could improve.

I don't think we should stop something that is very positive for many children because some can't take advantage of it. You might have benefitted from other things. I wouldn't have benefitted from cycling proficiency but I don't think that means it was a bad thing.

Bike trips are a great way of seeing lots of cities, so he will miss out and if travelling with others could be awkward if he can’t. In some places it’s also a good means of transport. Depending on his life it might not be essential but it might restrict him.

unless there is a disability stopping him I think it’s good to encourage him.

Thinking back maybe the kids all learned to ride bikes more often in the 70s/80s is that often parents didn't have cars and it they did they weren't willing to be a taxi service

Kids were expected to get themselves about at a younger ago.

Which is a good part of the reason why the kids all ride bikes where I am, as they are expected to take themselves to school from the first week of school, and many take themselves to hobbies and other places from a young age too. My town is too small to have public transport but big enough that the kids can be travelling up to 5km to school (more than that and they get the school bus) which would take too long walking in the morning.

As somebody who was not allowed a bike as a child I'd urge you to teach him. It's much harder to learn as an adult. I did learn eventually but never got fully confident.
It may not become his passion but having that skill under his belt will serve him well in his life.

I DO live in a place like that -Uber is a new-ish thing here, and public transport is not great. I haven’t cycled since I was a child and that wouldn’t be an option.

Yet I have never missed out by not driving. I had lessons in my 40s but it was clear I was never going to get through a test.

Even now, when I have a job that involves a certain amount of travel, I manage fine.

I did do my paper round on my bike (quite the challenge given that it’s very hilly so most of it was having to walk!) but haven’t used it since. I tried once and it didn’t end well.

There is a stigma to being a cyclist now. It is a shame that so many people who CAN ride, can’t do so on the road though. Riding the pavements is safer for them but more dangerous to pedestrians. It is also potentially intimidating to have them ride towards you in the middle of a relatively narrow pavement (which is why I won’t move out of their way).

And If it’s that great for transport, I don’t understand why they hop on a (packed) train (the ones without the cycle area) with their bikes.

Being able to ride a bike opens up loads of fun opportunities. Dc loved to hire a bike at places like Bedgebury and just take off. Bike hire along some lovely cycle paths. Fantastic cycling on hired bikes on Lanzarote, in Vietnam, in France. And also in the wonderful Bluebell Trail in SE England - similar fantastic bike trails in the peak district (e,g Manifold, Tissington, Monsal) where you see the best of the area .

Makes for a lovely and cheap day out, and a great alternative to theme parks etc. Kids love the sense of adventure.

And as teens they may not go straight from Mum Taxi to owning their own car. Many of us can't afford for teens and young adults to have a car, with the insurance etc. It's prohibitive.

We live in London and I am terrified of the traffic and other cyclists who speed along cycle lanes faster than the traffic, but mine spent a year in Cambridge - cities like that are made for cyclists and the buses wee expensive and not especially convenient. Same with Oxford.

OP - I wonder if you can borrow a bike for him to learn on? Do you know a family where the Dc have bikes and cycle? I am half way between YABU and YANBU. I wouldn't go out and but a bike yet but I would look for ways to see if he can learn and enjoy it.

Google parks with bike hire near you. The Royal Parks in London have bike hire, as do others, NT places often offer bike hire.

I would recommend the balance-bike technique for older Dc too - have the seat low enough so they can put their feet on the ground, freewheel down a gentle slope learning to balance and steer, once confident, try pedalling once on motion.

as I see it learning to ride a bike used to foster independence and gave confidence. Now though parents don't let their children out to play let alone ride a bike somewhere. I had the freedom at the weekend to ride to friends houses 1 or 2 miles away when was around 9/10 years old.

My own dds both learnt to ride bikes and one rode to school and back which was 1.5 miles each way - this was back I the 00s and I still do see children cycling to the same school so its still happening.

cycling does have a lot of mental health and physical health benefits, but you can get them from other exercise. The beauty of cycling is it doubles time, as you can go somewhere/commute and get the benefits of exercise at the same time.

Rather than an essential skill id say its a rite of passage

You don't live somewhere like that if you do have public transport and uber. There's no uber at all where I am and the only buses are school ones and long distance coaches. The train station is in the next town so if you want to go anywhere that coaches don't go you need to either drive, pay extortionate rates for a taxi (maybe 30 euros now for the 7km drive to the station) or cycle. The athletics track for PE is in the other town so the teenagers need to bike those 7km, they can't get there otherwise. People living in the other town needing to use any bureaucratic services (tax office, job centre, legal aid etc.) need to drive or cycle to get to it in my town, there's no other way unless they have all day for walking. Even further for those living in the village that's still part of this municipality (though they do at least have their own train station), too far for cycling.

Regardless of driving status, I can’t imagine what would possess anyone to live somewhere like that. I know you aren’t in the UK but it sounds like one of those tiny little villages here where everyone knows everyone else 😩

If your car breaks down, if you can’t afford fuel or whatever, you are stuck there.

The population is shrinking so lots must think the same as you, though its mainly the young people moving away for studies then settling where they go. Its a lovely place but it does have its difficulties. But not a tiny village, its a factory town with a massive art scene

Assuming the OP and most of the ‘essential life skills’ people are in the UK, then a remote factory town that thrives isn’t something most people are likely to experience.

I can’t see how it’s essential either. I can’t ride a bike (I have very poor balance so never cared to learn) and my daughter was never bothered about it.
Before I could drive I’d either walk or get a bus. Never had a gang of mates who all had bikes either.
If he’s not bothered, I’d not push it. We’re all different and all enjoy different things. I never look at someone who doesn’t do something I like to do and think well I just don’t understand it, it’s an essential skill.

People move. For instance I moved here from the UK.

According to WHO in 1999, essential life skills are:

Communication and interpersonal skills

Decision-making and problem-solving

Creative and critical thinking (the "4 Cs")

Emotional intelligence and self-awareness

Resilience, adaptability, and self-control

Digital literacy and financial management

Specific skills like driving, cycling, skiing, swimming may fall within those but are not universally essential. The usefulness of these things is dependent on your location and lifestyle.

https://www.skillsyouneed.com/general/life-skills.html

I cycled everywhere as a student and in my 20s, it saved me money on bus fares and so enabled me to be not on the breadline after buying my first home as my transport costs to work were almost zero! It also got me out and about at weekends

Fair enough. I’ll amend my “definitely” to “almost definitely” to take into account your anecdotal evidence. A survey done in 2024 showed that 24% of British adults couldn’t ride a bike and 22% of them wished they could.

Swimming, not essential? Okay argue with me about cycling all you want but swimming is absolutely an essential life skill. It’s lifesaving. You could probably get by without it, but you’d have to avoid a HUGE number of activities to keep yourself safe.

That’s a hell of a lot of people managing their lives without an allegedly essential life skill.

I'm old now but: I learnt at 4yo and loved it. Am quite upset now as would be dangerous/unsafe to do it now as I cannot grip the brakes!

The feeling of being self propelled and wind in your face, to me is exhilarating. Get an inexpensive bike for him, maybe a used one. If he doesn't like it not a lot is lost.