At What Age Can You Teach Your Child to Cycle

Most of us were taught to ride a bike by our parents when we were young children, but now that you are a parent you might be wondering when the best time is to teach your own child. At what age are children ready to learn to cycle?

The answer is that there is no set age to start teaching your kid to ride a bike. Some are ready to learn as young as two and you might start by putting them on a bike with training wheels. The good folk at Woom say that a balance bike for kids might be a better choice though as it allows them to master the more difficult part of cycling first – learning to balance. Other children are not ready to start cycling until they are older.

How to Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike

The most important thing to remember when teaching your child to cycle is that there is a lot for them to learn. While cycling likely comes naturally to you now, it wasn’t always this way. Riding a bike means learning how to balance, pedal, steer, and brake. So, there is a lot to do at the same time and it requires skills that your child will have to acquire.

As already mentioned, a balance bike can be great for very young children. It doesn’t have pedals and it may not have brakes. It is designed to teach children how to balance so that when they move to a bike with pedals, they will already have mastered the most difficult skill. With a balance bike, the child will sit on the saddle and hold the handle bars but will use their feet to move the bike. As they learn how to balance, they might lift their feet. A balance bike helps them to learn how to balance and steer a bike at the same time. When they have these skills, they can move to a pedal bike.

Some kids never use a balance bike and instead will use a pedal bike with training wheels. With this type of bike, they are learning how to pedal and steer before they learn to balance.

Whichever type of bike your child has started with, teaching them to ride a pedal bike without training wheels requires patience. It is best to begin in an area free from obstacles. Your child should be wearing protective gear such as a helmet and some knee and elbow pads; falling off a bike is not uncommon.

Always make sure that your child’s bike is the correct size. Some people think that it is best to buy a bigger bike so that their child will get longer out of it, but if your child’s feet do not reach the floor when they are sitting on the saddle, it is much more likely that they will fall off and then hurt themself.

You will need to support your child as they start to cycle but avoid holding on to the bike because this will prevent them from being able to steer or move freely. Instead, hold on to your child.

You might be tempted to teach your kid to ride on grass so that they will have a soft landing should theyfall but riding on grass makes pedaling harder. Walk or jog alongside your child until they are confident cycling and are able to stop and start themself without support.

To conclude, the age at which you start teaching your child to cycle will really depend on the individual child. Some are ready and can master the basic skills at a very young age while others might take a bit longer.