How To Teach a Stubborn Child To Ride a Bike

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Learning to ride a bike can be an amazing experience for a child and a thing of pride for the parent. But that’s not always the case, especially when dealing with a child who doesn’t want to learn. So, how do you teach a stubborn child to ride a bike?

Here’s how to teach a stubborn child to ride a bike:

Use positive encouragement during bike riding lessons.
Choose the right-size bike for learning.
Choose the right safety gear and learning environment.
Hold practice sessions when your child is comfortable.
Find out your child’s preferred bike learning method.
Offer incentives to encourage your child to learn.
Ask family or friends to teach your child to ride a bike.
Let your kid learn to ride a bike when they are ready.

Your stubborn child may be reluctant to learn to ride bikes because of the fear of falling, or they simply don’t like your teaching method. No matter the reason, one or more of these tips can help your child enjoy the learning process better, so keep reading.

1. Use Positive Encouragement During Bike Riding Lessons

Even the most stubborn kid can learn to ride a bike if you offer the right encouragement. That means you need to let go of the notion that you need to “break their will.”

Avoid yelling, using harsh words, or punishment when teaching your kid to ride a bike. These methods hardly produce any positive effect, and if anything, they can make the child more unwilling to learn.

Riding a bike should be fun. However, punishing your child for mistakes can have the opposite effect. If you discipline your child for making mistakes, it won’t be too long before they associate negative experiences with bike riding, and that’s not a good mindset for learning.

Perhaps, the first step in getting your child to learn to ride a bike is to understand that the stubborn trait is a good thing in disguise.

Stubborn kids are strong-willed, determined, and passionate, which can be beautiful traits.

Any parent will be proud to have a child with these qualities. All you have to do is patiently groom them into the inner-directed and self-motivated teens and young adults they can become. And teaching a stubborn child to ride a bike is an excellent opportunity to nurture these qualities.

As you’ll quickly discover, knowing how to teach a stubborn child to ride a bike isn’t just about getting your kid to have fun on two wheels.

It’s also about building your parenting skills, testing your patience, respecting your child’s rights, and developing the ability to see the good in your child, regardless of what their current level of development may suggest.

2. Choose the Right-Size Bike for Learning

Kids can be reluctant to ride on a bike if it is not the right size. If the bike is too small or too big, the learning experience won’t be very pleasant.

Buying a bike for your child to “grow into” might seem like a good thing, but it increases the risk of tipping over because your child’s leg won’t reach the ground enough to maintain balance when they try to stop.

Picking the correct bike size for learning can sometimes mean getting a bicycle that’s a little small but not too small.

You want your child to be able to firmly plant their feet on the ground when they sit on the bike. A good way to achieve this is to adjust the bike seat until your child’s legs are comfortably on the ground.

If you already have a bigger bike, perhaps for an older sibling, consider renting or borrowing a smaller one for learning instead of making a younger child use it. They’ll have a hard time relaxing and focusing on learning on a bigger bike, which can make them more unwilling to learn.

3. Choose the Right Safety Gear and Learning Environment

The fear of falling and getting hurt can make even the most independent kid reluctant to learn cycling.

Besides boosting your child’s confidence, providing the right protective gear can reduce any fear of falling and getting hurt. Invest in good-quality bike gear for children, including the correct size bike helmet and knee and elbow pads.

Although protective gear can reduce the fear of falling, learning to ride a bike on the grass will be a more welcoming idea to a child than learning on hard surfaces, such as the pavement.

Find an open space, preferably a location with lots of grass, such as a park. Whatever location you choose, make sure the environment is right for a child to learn to ride a bike. You want to avoid areas with high foot and vehicle traffic, as they can worsen the fear of getting hurt.

Training wheels can be very helpful during learning, as it prevents falling and encourages kids to be more confident while cycling. According to a study available in the British Journal of Developmental Psychology, training wheels promote independent cycling among kids between four and six years old.

Still, you want to ditch the training wheels as soon as possible. You want your child to build confidence to ride without a training wheel, but you don’t want them to only ride when there’s an extra security feature.

While many people recommend removing the training wheels when kids are between the ages of four and eight, there is no one-size-fits-all age for these things.

Instead, keep your child’s needs in mind when deciding to get rid of the training wheels.

Always allow your child to learn at a pace that’s comfortable for them. Never pressure a stubborn kid to give up training wheels when they are not ready.

Let Your Child Pick Out Their Protective Gear

A stubborn child can fight your help, no matter your well-meaning intentions. One good way to reduce this resistance is to let your child pick out their safety gear.

Children are more likely to wear their gear willingly and even be more excited about learning to ride a bike if you let them pick their gear. Remember that stubborn kids are often self-directed and independent, so allow them to feel as if they have a say in the decision-making process.

Of course, you should provide guidance and make sound decisions, such as choosing the right protective gear and choosing good-quality options. But it is okay to let the child pick their favorite color or pattern.

Remember, you should be a good role model and always wear a helmet each time you go biking. A stubborn child will likely question why they should wear a lid if you ride without one.

Don’t mistake this for rebellion as the child is only staying true to their trait.

4. Hold Practice Sessions When Your Child Is Comfortable

Consider your child’s mood before taking the bike out of your garage. You’ll want to put off biking when your child is grumpy, tired, hungry, or generally in an irritable state.

The best time to suggest bike riding is when your child is well-fed, well-rested, or happy. The more comfortable your child is, the higher the chances of being willing to learn a tricky activity like biking.

5. Find Out Your Child’s Preferred Bike Learning Method

The old-fashioned method of holding the bike seat to provide stability and running with your child as they learn to ride may work for some kids. But some stubborn kids will get mad and abandon the session if you adopt this teaching method.

Independent and bossy kids don’t want parents to think they are incapable of handling themselves, so it makes sense that they won’t enjoy this helicopter parenting approach.

If your child tends to walk off or throws a tantrum each during bike learning sessions, you are probably hovering over the child. Scale things back a bit and allow your child to make mistakes. Trust that they will ask for your help when they need it.

6. Offer Incentives To Encourage Your Child To Learn

Stubborn kids are free-willed, so sometimes getting them to stick to a routine like learning a bike can be difficult. Also, some parents’ desire for their kids to learn biking is greater than the children’s.

Offering small incentives in such cases can help kids buy the idea and be more excited about learning to bike.

However, it’s important not to offer too much incentive, as that could produce the type of negative effect you don’t want. You’ll inadvertently put too much pressure on your child to perform if the stakes are too high.

Keep the rewards small instead of promising something out of this world that they can’t say no to. A favorite toy, later bedtime, an ice cream outing, or even honest verbal praise should do the trick.

7. Ask Family or Friends To Teach Your Child To Ride a Bike

When it comes to teaching your kids physical activities like riding a bike, it can be difficult to get them to listen to you no matter how hard you try.

The reason for this is connected to the history between you and your child. Parents and children often carry plenty of baggage, which can make your child hear something completely different from what you say.

For example, when you say, “be careful,” your child will probably hear:

“Be careful; you’re going to crash!”
“Be careful; you don’t always listen to me!”
“Be careful, this isn’t so difficult, but I don’t know why you can’t get it?”

If you’re doing your best to teach your child to ride a bike, but your efforts don’t produce any positive results, perhaps it is time to enlist outside help. Your child’s favorite uncle, aunt, teacher, or neighbor might be a better fit for the job than you.

First, your kid will simply follow their directions since there is likely no negative history or emotional baggage to cloud their minds.

Secondly, your child won’t have to deal with the fear of disappointing you.

8. Let Your Kid Learn To Ride a Bike When They Are Ready

Some kids are very athletic and have no trouble skating, swimming, or doing other physical activities. Still, they just don’t want to learn to ride a bike.

If that’s your child, it is best to let it go and wait until they are ready and want to learn.

This advice may not be what you were hoping for, especially when many people suggest that kids should be able to ride bikes at a certain age.

Indeed, cycling has plenty of benefits for kids, but here’s the thing. Every child is unique, and if your kid doesn’t want to learn to ride a bike, you should simply let them be. Your child might try again on their own when they are ready, but not before.

Forcing your child to learn to ride a bike will only annoy them and might even strain the parent-child relationship you have. You want to create happy memories with your kid, not sad ones that you’ll one day wish to go back in time and erase.

So, don’t force your child to measure up to some imaginary standards set by other people.

Some kids learn to ride at age 5 while others do so at age 9. Sometimes kids will learn to ride a bike on their own or be more willing to learn when they are the only one among their friends who can’t ride a bike.

In other words, peer pressure might be a better positive influence on your child in this case than coercing the kid to do what he or she is not ready to do. The important thing is that your child will enjoy learning how to ride a bike when he or she is ready.

There are a select few children who just flat out refuse to ride a bike no matter how old they are. And that’s okay too, as it’s not imperative that children learn to ride bikes. My middle child is now in her 20s and she still doesn’t know how to ride a bike. She also doesn’t drive, due to extreme fear.

It’s really no big deal if your child doesn’t want to ride a bike.

Key Takeaways

Yelling, harsh words, or disciplining your kid for making mistakes or not learning as fast as you want them to learn can discourage the child. They also might have an intense fear of falling and getting hurt.

Adopting some of these tips can make the bike learning experience more pleasant for a stubborn child:

Create the right physical and emotional environment for learning.
Provide the correct sized bike and safety gear.
Offer incentives, such as their favorite toy, to make learning more exciting.
Allow your child to learn when they are ready and at their own pace.