Do you guys have any pointers on getting your kid to "stick with it" until they learn to pedal and then on to balancing?
My oldest son is 6.5 and he is tall and skinny but not too weak to carry heavy bags of groceries and help out around the house so I think he is strong enough to pedal the bike even on a small hill, but every time in the past couple years we have sat him on his bike (Chinese-made generic bike with 16" wheels and training wheels) he just gives up before he fully learns to pedal. Going down a hill he will do it for a while but then he just complains that it's hard on flat ground or up a hill.
It seems like he is just not that interested in learning to ride a bike, which I admit I can't really comprehend because it was such a huge part of my childhood and there are lots of kids riding bikes around the neighborhood, even ones way younger/smaller than him and he doesn't seem to care.
I'd be happy to buy him a much nicer BMX bike if he could just learn to ride but my wife (understandably so) wouldn't support spending money on something he might not even use.
My other boy is almost 4 and he is scared to even sit on a bike without being held up and my daughter is 1.5 and we have a little balance bike but she wants no part of it. I am pretty sure they will follow the lead of their older brother though, once he learns.
I get frustrated by this because I sure pictured having a whole family that would want to ride around together. My wife has a bike but is not interested in riding without the kids. We even have a lot of good trails a stone's throw from where we live, people drive their bikes across town with their cars and trucks to ride here and we are just missing out. I guess you can't force your kids to do anything, but I see riding a bike as a mandatory skill that I will have failed as a dad if my kids don't learn. So any pointers on getting them to at least learn would be appreciated.
Thanks!
Also, first post in a long while - time sure flies.