Most people assume that they will start a child out with training wheels when they teach bike riding skills. There are, in fact, quite a number of ways to teach a child to ride, and the training wheel approach is only one of these.  Here, we highlight four main ways that you can teach a child to ride, and we will elaborate on each in a future post.

1. Training Wheels – This is the least painful way to learn to ride a bike – but it often tends to be the slowest way to do so.  It is best for a family that lives on a quiet street without hills.  As the child grows comfortable with the training wheels, the wheels should be raised slightly.  This should continue, until eventually the training wheels aren’t doing anything at all.

2. Running with the Child – Another popular approach is to run along the child riding the bike.  The parent should hold the child by the shoulders in this situation and run along behind the bike.  The parent should NOT hold the handlebars, since the child won’t really be able to practice balancing if the parent it controlling the bike.

3. The Undersized Bike – This is actually the ideal way to learn to ride a bike.  For this process, you would purchase a bike that it too small for the rider.  The rider should be able to sit on the saddle with both feet flat on the ground with the knees slightly bent.  This approach is often impractical since most parents don’t want to buy a bike that is too small for the child, and that will be made obsolete as soon as the child learns to ride well.

4. Scooters – While most people don’t consider this approach, a scooter is actually a great way to learn balance.  Many actually recommend it as a better way to learn to ride than with training wheels.  With a scooter, the child is able to learn to balance without the distraction of the pedals.  In addition, since one foot is on the ground much of the time, the child will see the scooter as less scary than the bike.