How to Ride A Bike & Other Skills Your Kid Should Learn

by | May 16, 2022 | Family Topics, Teenagers, Toddlers

When Solomon wrote Proverbs, he mentioned instruction about 100 times directly and indirectly. In the opening verses, he writes that instruction is given to help us move from naivete to wisdom, noting that fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 29:17 says “Correct your son and he shall give you rest. He will give delight to your soul.” The Hebrew word for “correct” can mean to discipline but it can also mean to admonish or teach. Parenting involves lots of teaching. And like so many things in life, there are effective ways to do this and ineffective ways to do this.

When we were raising our kids, we thought in terms of two categories of training: 

  • Moral training: like learning the preciousness of others, asking for forgiveness, telling the truth etc
  • Skills training: learning to walk, to drink from a cup, to ride a bike, to swim, to drive. 

Recognizing the difference between these two types of training is important. How we instruct, encourage, and correct in teaching our kids a skill will differ from what we do when teaching morals. And, just to make your life more interesting, learning a skill can become a moral training issue based on your kid’s behavior when they try and fail. For example, learning to ride a bike is a skill. Having an angry outburst when you fall off the bike or giving way to fear and refusing to try can be moral/character training issues.

So, let’s talk about skills training.

The first thing you want to consider is your child’s skills, talents, and giftedness. Let’s define what we’re talking about here:

  • Skills are basic to all human beings like riding a bike or learning to swim.
  • Natural talents are gifts from God. They are NOT universally given to all. 
  • This is related to giftedness, because giftedness is simply a magnified talent.

There are three essential elements to help your child develop a skill:

  • Patience
  • Guidance
  • Motivation

What are effective motivations for your child?

  1. Praise: We often praise our children when they do something well. But also consider that we should praise them for their effort. This will teach them the value of hard work and keep you from performance-based affection.
    1. Pre-activity encouragement
      1. Discuss what this looks like: reminders, questions, positive words.
    2. Post-activity encouragement
      1. Discuss what this looks like
      2. Webster’s dictionary defines ‘encourage’ as ‘to inspire with courage, to cheer on or cheer up.’ When our children feel that there is nothing they can do right, that is the moment we need to inspire them with courage. 
      3. Work with one thing at a time so they don’t get overwhelmed
      4. Be willing to step in and help your child achieve success. This can look like by offering assistance OR backing off on our demands to give them time to regroup OR just be there while they are working through it themselves.
    3. Dialogue questions
      1. Instead of telling, you are asking. How do you kick your feet when you swim? How do you move your arms through the water?
  1. Goal Incentives: These are tangible, external rewards used to motivate children to try hard things.
    1. Example in Renee’s family: metronome for Houston, Cracker Barrel lollipop for Emma
    2. Example in Bonnie’s family: computer for black belt–years to achieve
    3. What would be a logical goal incentive for…
      1. Learning to ride a bike
      2. Learning to swim
      3. Learning to tie your shoes
      4. Learning …

Warning about using goal incentives for moral behavior. This is bribery. Explain the difference.

Explain how we used a surprise reward for moral behavior. 

A reward is offered to reinforce moral behavior, not to stimulate it. Verbal praise and encouragement will stimulate behavior, but the purpose of a reward is to confirm and reinforce  behavior. When parents overuse rewards, the child becomes conditioned to – even dependent on-receiving them. When that happens, the child may only go through the motions of good behavior, demonstrating outward conformity but not inward. Bribery provides temporary results. That’s why we do it. Properly rewarding a child motivates him from the heart, a place you want to influence.

Inspirational Training Quotes:

“Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” ― Pablo Picasso