SPD and riding a bike

[AMumGoingMad]

I wondered if anyone else has had this issue and what you've done. My nearly 7yr old DS has SPD. We just can't get him on his bike. We can get him to ride up at the park on flat paved surfaces after a lot of wobbling and just zero balance and alot of holding the saddle and eventually after 30 mins or so he can get going and he can ride his bike no problems at all and he'll go for hours. Then we come home. Then we go out the next week and repeat it all again. This has been going on now for 18 months. Every time we go out we are having to reteach him how to ride his bike. I've now spoken to other parents of nt none of them have had to continually re-teach riding the bike, once they're children had learnt they had learnt. What do we do? We want to go out as a family to the local forest and country park but we can't. How to we get him to retain the skill between sessions?

I could certainly try that over the holidays zzzzz, not really possible in term time.

It will be exhausting but if it works then its got to be better than this continual re-teaching. Thats exhausting as well. We've been doing it for at least 18 months now and we're not progressing at all, not even reducing the time from starting again to of on his own. If we have good weather in the Easter holidays I'll give it a go, the park is only 5 minutes walk away so I can easily go there twice a day for 2 weeks!

I might try it with maths as well LOL!

I would love to go to Centre parks, as would the kids, but we just can't afford it :(. Why do they make it so expensive? Plus Whinfell I've been told is very hilly, he wouldn't do hills, not even a gentle slope right now even when he is on and going.

I don't know what happens after just a 30 min break. I know he can stop and wait for us to catch up walking (so just a couple of minutes maximum) and start again. We've never stopped for snacks.

Your idea of maybe being a habit is certainly possible, I can try the gate idea, anything is worth a go! Whats currently happening is driving us all insane and he's starting to have massive tantrums over it so we need to change what we're doing because we don't want to make an issue over it but cycling is very much part of our family life so we need to get him going or accept he's not going to learn and invest in a trike but they're so expensive and I think he CAN learn and retain the skill if we could just work out how.

zzzzz we live just 10 mins from one of the foresty commission forests and we would dearly love to be able to cycle round there again one day but right now he won't even get on his bike in the forest. We've tried that today and it was awful, way worse than up at the park. I think the problem with our local forest is the paths are very bumpy and so even though we were on a flat bit he just couldn't get his balance at all. We gave up today after 30 mins as we were making no progress at all and our dd really wanted to go off for a ride so we dumped the bike (its a miracle it didn't get nicked!!) and walked. Its today experience thats prompted this post!

DS7 has only just managed it (today was his second time he managed to cycle) and we put it down to his scooter - one of those 2 wheeled ones. He's been on that for 6 months and it's helped massively (although DH and I are divided, he thinks it's helped his balance, I think it's helped his confidence). Either way though, it's worked. Could you try something else for a while, IYSWIM? Take the pressure off the bike while keeping him going on something that will still help and will still enable you all to stay mobile?

He's got a scooter which he does love and uses around the village all the time. But we had to get a 3 wheel one for him because he couldn't manage the 2 wheel ones. We've tried that in the forest and at the country park but its not up to the rougher paths. But it does keep us mobile in the local vincinity on a day to day basis.

justaboutchilledout How long did you practice everyday for to retain the skill after a break from it?