What Cycling Can Teach Your Children about Life
Cathy Belben
-John F. Kennedy
Your children may be out of school for the summer, but that doesn’t mean their learning has to end, and chances are that the sunshine will draw them outside and onto their bikes. As you prepare to instruct your four-year-old to ride with training wheels, or buy a larger bike for your rapidly growing preteen, consider that in addition to the motor skills they develop and the increased physical fitness they gain from pedaling around the neighborhood, kids learn a lot about life atop a cycle’s seat.
It takes longer to get from one place to another on a bike, and as a result, adult cyclists and children alike generally learn to be more patient when they are cycling. Bellingham cyclist Tom Caldwell, who cycles daily on a modified tandem with his children Noah, 5, and Dana, 3, says that his kids are accustomed to the time it takes to bicycle around town. “They have learned the importance of enjoying the journey,” he notes, and adds that the added time also allows them to observe things they might miss in a car. “The other morning Dana and Noah and I stopped to look at a piliated woodpecker on the interurban trail,” he says. “Now Dana is always looking for woodpeckers.” In a world where we value speed more and more, teaching children to wait graciously and enjoy taking things slowly becomes increasingly difficult. Traveling by bike can make the process easier.
MJ DeLaHunt, also of Bellingham, agrees that her kids, Katie, 8, and Liam, 6, have also developed sharper observation skills, and that this has led to increased awareness about their own safety, another important lesson child cyclists learn. “They’ve learned they have to look out for other people and for cars; they know they have to look out for their own safety,” she says. Mike Curl’s daughters, Sophie, 9, and Elizabeth, 7, sometimes bike to school, have learned “respect for wearing helmets and other safety requirements.” Besides learning to take responsibility for their own well-being, children gain pride from caring for their bikes, and providing them with locks, helmets, flags, bike bags, and other equipment can reinforce the importance of safety and responsibility.
While your three-year-old won’t necessarily be assembling her own tricycle or hauling out the wrench to tighten her brakes, but she will gain confidence about the equipment when she rides a bike, and mechanical knowledge gained while cycling transfers to other areas as children mature. Tom Caldwell’s son, Noah, for example, is beginning to show interest in manipulating the gadgetry on his bike, and can name the parts with ease—how many other five-year-olds know what derailers and panniers are? Older children can learn to pump air into tires and perform their own bike maintenance as their motor skills improve. DeLaHunt’s second-grade daughter, Katie, just received a new bike, and “She’s learning the principles of gearing,” her mom says. The more children learn about mechanics of their bikes, the more confident they will feel and the better equipped they will be to handle other technical tasks in the future; mechanical knowledge exercises the visual cortex and prepares the brain for more complicated jobs.
When your son pedals up the steepest hill in the neighborhood for the first time, or your daughter pulls herself back on board after toppling off her trike, enduring these small difficulties prepares them for larger trials later, equipping them with fortitude and confidence. Caldwell notes, that his kids have learned to tolerate minor discomforts when riding their family bike on drizzly days. “Noah and Dana have learned that you don’t have to be limited by weather,” he says. DeLaHunt comments that Katie and Liam went through typical struggles learning to ride a bike, and that both reached a level of frustration—one that they overcame and still gain confidence from. “They both got to a point where they said, ‘I hate this, I’m never going to be able to do this’ and then they tried one more time and got it.” She and husband Mark Toney remind their kids of this experience when they face other challenges; memories of overcoming difficulties in the past strengthens them for other obstacles.
Many cyclists comment on the degree to which they feel more connected with their community when they are on a bike instead of inside a car; they wave to one another as they pass on the street, chat while waiting at stop lights, and feel closer to the people around them without the wall of metal and glass separating them. “When you are outside of a box, it’s more of a social experience…you can interact with other people,” Tom Caldwell says. He adds, “When we’re on the tandem, people are always smiling, laughing, and shouting out comments…the kids are getting a lot of positive reinforcement for being out there on the bike.” Additionally, kids on bikes learn cycling etiquette—the set of safety and courtesy guidelines that bikers follow, such as yielding the right of way, passing on the left, and signaling other cyclists and pedestrians. “They are learning to tell people when they come up behind them on a trail,” DeLaHunt says of Katie and Liam, noting their development. Again, the rules kids learn for biking behavior translate into other arenas: when they learn to be polite in one place, they extend that graciousness to other situations.
Lesson
#6: Self-Sufficiency
Tom Caldwell says cycling has also taught his children what they can do for themselves. “They’ve learned how far you can go under your own power… on a bike, we look at all the people in cars, and they don’t think about doing it with their own bodies…our kids are learning that.” DeLaHunt agreed with this assessment. “Katie and Liam are pretty excited about doing things and not taking the car—they’re proud of that,” she says. “They have their own packs and carry their own snacks and water. ”She adds that the independence they feel is important too, that they enjoy not having to rely on their parents to go places.
Perhaps the most important lesson about cycling is the one that Mike Curl points out when mentioning his daughter Sophie’s experience. “She did the Junior Ski-to-Sea Race this year,” he says, “and she learned to have fun.”
Cathy Belben is a Bellingham, Washington resident who
bicycles all over town.