Riding a bike

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That's a good idea. THanks. I was thinking abou tit actually, and I think the bike we have is a 12 inch and they do make 10 inch bikes. I'm going to have to go check it out. If you look at pictures, you can see that the seat on the balance bikes are much lower than seats on regular bikes. That's why I think they'd work.

The KinderBike (www.mykinderbike.com) and bikes similar to it are quite effective if your child is 2-6 years. There is an option out there for older (bigger) kids and it's put out by a company called FunOne Bikes (www.funonebikes.com). They make a 16" bike where you can remove the crank and pedals with a single bolt. Once your child gets the balance down, you simply reattach the crank and pedals with that one bolt. Great product for older children. Hope that helps!

My son is 10 and can't ride a bike either. For him trying to put all the different steps together in his head to manuever the bike was too much. He seemed to just not have an interest in it though so I just let it go. The ideas on here though are great and I might give it a try. Thanks

We are dealing with this with my now 12 year old. He just never had the confidence to try it and the falling over was all too much for him. Even now he sneaks a practice run here and there in our yard when I am there, but it is still slow going. He is learning the balancing going straight but to turn is so scary to him. We don't give him grief about it and we actually have a built in excuse if anyone makes fun of him. His brother was hit by a car riding his bycycle and so he has all the right in the world to be scared, even though his fear came about long before his brother's accident. I think one day he may be able to ride, but it is hard at this age, we can't get away with some of the fixes that will work for the younger kids. I wish I would have seen the trailers or buddy bikes a long time ago.

My daughter is 13 and has never been able to ride. We are still working on social issues like proximity and touching.

Sometimes it can be helpful to just use one training wheel. It gives them security but they still have to learn to balance the bike. This worked for my daughter. My son was so afraid of falling that I put a winter coat and pants on him in June to cushion his falls. He wasn't afraid of getting hurt and it gave him the courage to ride fast enough to get his balance. It is exausting work, especially if you are the one running behind him holding onto the seat. Let go of the seat when he builds up a little speed and hopefully he will keep going. Not sure if it will work for your child but good luck!

I took my daughter out today, she is four (however NT with no gross motor skill difficulties). Anyway, from the nights we went out with her training wheels, it was evident that it would be a long time before she was ready to take them off. We took them off, however where unable to get the peddles off. (Strangely assembled crap Walmart bike). Still, it was exhausting for me, but we where out about 20 minutes, and I could sense a huge improvement in her balance and the amount of support she needed. A little boy her age was at the park and borrowed her bike, he was FLYING around, and he said he never had training wheels! He was trying to teach her how to ride, it was so cute!

I really think this whole thing makes a lot of sense, I wish I could get the peddles right off, but even with them on, I think she is best learning on two wheels not four!

I wish all you parents having difficulty luck!

I have no advice as I still can't ride a bike, though I want to ask all of you a question, does your kid want to learn to ride a bike or do you want him to learn to ride a bike? Teaching him at this age can be bad for self-esteem and popularity (not that aspies are ever popular but an 8 year old learning to ride a bike...) amoung other things. If he wants to give up why not let him? I hated it when my parents insisted on me learning to ride a bike until I was like 10, though it was slightly worse in that case because they gave my little brother power over me (he knew I hated it but if he wanted to go ride bikes I wasn't allowed to stay inside and do what I wanted to do, he used that alot!).

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Just want to say that my son is 7 and is still not riding a bike either. We do have the trail bike like someone posted earlier and he just now loves that. We have had it since he has been about 4. Initially he was fearful, but after some PT this year and discovering why he was the way he was,he has felt more confident.

We just bought him a Kettcar that he loves and can ride and is not so left behind by all the bike riding kids in the neighborhood because it looks like a go-cart.

My 13 year old (T2) learned to ride his bike at 5 because his training wheel fell off and I didn't have the time to fix it. He wasn't waiting because he wanted to ride with his brother (NT). I looked out and he was riding. My other son with AS, S, was 9. He struggled and struggled but then he decided that he was learning and that was that. It broke my heart to watch him but he had his step-dad out there ALL day and he finally did it.
As for the shoelaces, I just gave up on teaching them to tie their shoes. I noticed a few months ago that S had his shoes tied and he said that he put them on one day and figured it out. Just like that! He was 15. T2 still can't tie but he is starting to fiddle with tieing things when he thinks I'm not looking and he will be seeing an occupational therapist soon so hopefully it will happen.

With my guy being 12, I was just thinking about a bicycle built for two...Daisy, Daisy......LOL. If seen by friend she can always just say, "yeah, my Mom is lame, but it makes her happy if I go with her" and then they can all laugh at me. This might give him the feeling of being on a bike and learning the balance before applying it to a one person and if he never learns then at least we can still ride together and have fun. What do you think???