The Fat Guy In The Back
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Sioux Falls, SD
Posts: 2,532
Bikes: '81 Panasonic Sport, '02 Giant Boulder SE, '08 Felt S32, '10 Diamondback Insight RS, '10 Windsor Clockwork, '15 Kestrel Evoke 3.0, '19 Salsa Mukluk
Mentioned: 92 Post(s)
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I kept raising the training wheels on my son's bike but he just kept leaning further and further sideways as he rode, even though they were so high they were causing him to fall over at times. I figured out that (at least for him) training wheels don't work as intended: rather than learning to balance and having the wheels there as a safety catch, they just foster reliance on them.
At some point my son asked me to take them off. I think he was about 4 1/2 years old at that time. Once I did I refused to put them back on. My wife or I would run behind to steady him but again he would just rely on us to hold him up. Finally we just let him slowly work it out on his own. He struggled for about a week trying to learn to balance. I remember it was a Thursday when it clicked. By the end of that day he could ride most of a block without falling over.
Once he found a little bit of success it drove him to keep working at it. Four days later he went on a 16 mile trail ride with me and didn't dump it a single time.