Danger Awareness

 You know that your little one is going to love riding their new bike. The sense of adventure and independence that a bike gives is much the same as it was when you first learnt to drive. Keeping that in mind you should also remember that your child is also experiencing some dangers for the first time.

 Controlling a bike that can travel faster than they’ve previously walked, especially if there is a hill nearby, avoiding obstacles that you can’t easily roll over and the interaction of other bikes and vehicles all expose children to new dangers.

 It’s important to give your child a good start in learning about these challenges so that they master the skills of steering, balance, looking further ahead, stopping and avoiding collisions. Part of this is making sure that they are on a bike that is neither too large nor too small for them so that they can optimally control the bike. The next part is to progressively introduce them to the new challenges so that they have time to master each of them in turn.

 Skills to teach small children, or novices:

• Steering where you want to go
• Steering around obstacles
• Stopping when and were you want to
• Balancing when riding slowly
• Going over bumps