Learning to ride a bicycle can be a struggle | THE MOM STOP

I was sitting on my bright-blue bike with rainbow-colored handlebar streamers in the backyard of my elementary school best friend when it happened: I rode a bike without training wheels.

I admittedly don’t remember much else from being 5 years old, other than going to kindergarten and getting my ears pierced for the first time. But I do remember vividly the sense of accomplishment, of feeling grown up, when I rode that bike for the very first time, all on my own.

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For my oldest child, that feeling happened around the same age. My husband and I worked with her one afternoon on the street in front of our home, which was luckily fairly flat and void of busy traffic. It only took her a few tries, but our thrill-seeking, very determined first born got it pretty quickly.

Not to be outdone, her little brother, who was only 3 at the time, asked that we also take his training wheels off his Planes-themed orange and white bike, with its tiny 12-inch tires. I remember thinking there was no way that our preschooler was going to be able to ride so early.

But just as our oldest daughter was determined to do go training wheel-free, our son was just as determined to do anything that his older sister could do. The day after his big sister learned to ride her bike, it only took him two tries, and away he went.

Our youngest child is different from her siblings in so many ways — she does things in her own way, on her own terms. I’m not sure if it was because we moved to a neighborhood that had more hills when she was in kindergarten. Or perhaps maybe we took her training wheels off too late. Or, maybe it was because she just preferred her scooter. But at almost 9 years old, she still didn’t know how to ride a bike — until last week.

We’ve tried each year. Several times, she’s seemingly almost had it. She could go down a slight hill while balancing, and had a little success. But each time as she got close to riding on her own, she’d start to panic and crash. The last crash, she ended with a bloody knee, and she swore off the bike “for good.”

Just as our two oldest kids were determined to ride without training wheels, our youngest was determined not to ride at all.

But lately, a group of neighborhood girls have started to ride bikes together, but our girl didn’t know how. Recently, she admitted that she did want to ride, and her second-grader best friend tried teaching her the best that she could with a bike that had flat tires.

And so last weekend, I inflated the tires and told my youngest child that it was time. Like me, she’s more timid.

Unlike the thrill-seekers in our family, she’d rather play it safe. And so each time we got started, she quickly stopped.

Her anxiety got to her, and quickly the tears came. I had her repeat “I can do this. I can do this.” and a few times she started, she panicked as she said she couldn’t feel my hand on her back. We stopped, started, stopped again.

We were both getting frustrated.

Until her older brother, who is 12, joined us in the street. “Let me try,” he said. I decided to let them have some space, walking back to our house. A few minutes later, I heard laughing.

“Go Eliza, go!” my son shouted as his little sister pedaled off without him, him running behind her, cheering her on.

In the days that have followed, our girl has rode her bike daily after school. She wears her helmet, and even straps on her knee pads and elbow pads, just in case. But she’s got it. She finally learned. She finally did it.

She just had to do it in her own time ― with a little help from her big brother.

Lydia Seabol Avant writes The Mom Stop for The Tuscaloosa News. Reach her at momstopcolumn@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Siblings bond over bicycle-riding struggles | THE MOM STOP