A father was describing to me how he recently taught his daughter to ride her bike.  The kickstand was off and she was exploring her balance as she tentatively placed her foot on the pedal and inched forward.  Without the speed needed to keep the bike upright she tipped over and hopped around a bit to stabilize herself, frustrated and fearful.  Her father knew that if she could just apply a little more pressure to the pedal she would get the bike moving and would soon see what it felt like to glide smoothly down the road.

The temptation in moments like this, when we can see the answer that the person in front of us hasn’t yet had the experience to understand, is to push them forward.  Likely, if he had lost his patience and told her to ‘just pedal’, she would have become more upset herself, might have given up, certainly the experience would be less pleasant for both of them.  Instead, this father recognized his daughter’s fear and asked her about it, met her where she was.  She described her fear of falling off, of not being able to stop, of going too fast.  And he listened.  And he remembered when he first learned, and when he had been afraid.  He agreed that, yes, learning to ride a bike is scary and that he would be there to do what he could to help her until it wasn’t scary any longer.

My own son was not happy with my announcement that this was the day he would learn to ride.  “Will I fall?” he asked.  “Most certainly.” I replied.  “Will I bleed?” he asked.  “It is very possible that you will,” I said and showed him the BandAids I had packed in his pack.  “I’ll be right back,” he announced and ran back up to his room.  He emerged a few minutes later with three pairs of pants on to protect his knees and off we went to the park.

When we let go of our urge to protect and instruct children at our pace and instead, pay attention to their processes for learning, we can teach them self-confidence and the ability to tolerate their fears long enough to risk mistakes and failure.  I am happy to report that both of these children are happy riders now and both parents may have learned a little something along the way.

For more tips on navigating parenthood, visit the parent classes at Teacher Coach here