I will raise my hand to say we sent our kids to Pedalheads.
Basically, it was a week of summer camp for them. My oldest could already ride, but it was just a way for her to spend a week riding her bike around while her mom and I worked.
I didn’t see it as any different from any other summer camp we could have chosen for them. Some kids go to horse camp, some to farm camp, some to wilderness camp - mine went to bike camp. I feel no guilt for this.
That was my first thought. Maybe Muffy isn’t too bright? Where I grew up, parents bought a bike, assembled it and handed it over to the kids.
I mean, who am I to judge what parents do, not being a parent myself, but I do have wonderful memories of my dad teaching me to ride a bike. And I loved it.
It depends on the parent, though. I could have my dad teach me to ride a bike. When my mom tried to teach me to drive it resulted in a fight, and dad taught me to drive, calmly and rationally. When my mom tried to teach me to read and write Hindi it descended into a screaming crying match. And I learned from a neighborhood Auntie.
So the parent has to have patience.
This isn’t a comment on your mother, 'cuz I don’t know her, but some parents should never try to teach kids. There are some parents who should never have been parents, but we won’t go there.
My father scared the hell out of me when I was learning how to drive. He’s one that should have had body parts removed when he was 18.
[shameless bragging]I decided when I had kids that there had to be an easier way, and really was inspired by what they could get the kids to do at day care, even when they were two or so. This inspired me to have Beta-chan help make pancakes and such, and she was able to break eggs without getting the shells in before she turned three. (I didn’t teach her that, she figured it out on her own.) This morning she made them with almost no help from me. One cup of flour. One cup of milk. One egg, no shells in the mix. One tablespoon of sugar. Yup, just one. One teaspoon of baking powder, and you use a knife to open the lid. Nope, no more sugar. Mix and Daddy pours in into the fry pan where three-year-olds aren’t allowed to touch.
It’s not that difficult when it’s something they want to do, and are willing to listen. Other things aren’t that simple. [/shameless bragging]
I was scared of the bicycle, and frankly, I had reason to be. We lived on a road with no sidewalks, the speed limit was 45, and we had a downward-sloping gravel driveway. There was only so much I could get done in our yard, and the trips to the paved parking lots for the Major Teaching Sessions were so high pressure that I would be a wreck by the end. It always felt like I was being pushed forward and let go too fast, and I’d freak and fall over. I get the feeling my parents were those “just got it” types when they were kids. I didn’t.
Eventually, I got sick of not being able to ride a bike, and managed to teach myself by walking it to a dead-end street without my parents around, and gradually got the balance without the pressure of people watching, called-out suggestions that came too late, etc.