Robbie sez: > May seem silly to send this to a list for bicyclists, but maybe you know > someone who would be interested. Although it appears to be aimed at kids > (or really their parents), it does appear that they are also accepting > adults. May want to check with MSCR about that.
It's not silly to share this with a list of bicyclists at all. We're the ones who can volunteer as instructors and pass along our enthusiasm for bicycling. I volunteered for one of these sessions last year. I worked with a variety of kids, ranging from fearful to confident. The first one was probably 6-7 years old, somewhere in the middle of that range in confidence, but by the time he was riding on his own, the proud Dad was taking video on his mobile, exclaiming, "You're riding a bike now!" A slightly older girl was having a very frustrating time with it, complaining very loudly, "I can't do this!" But we persevered and "I can't do this!" became, "I can do it!" over and over again. I had kids who were all smiles the whole time and learned easily, and one in particular who went into meltdown and the Mom and I decided he needed to sit out for a while and maybe try again later. The one I was least expecting was a boy who was obviously older than all the others, I figured there was no way he was any younger than 12. He was having trouble at the first station, where they start the kids propelling themselves with their feet, pedals removed from the bike. Another volunteer passed him along to me at my station, pedals back on the bike, asking whether I had any ideas for working with him. I asked the kid how old he is (14), that I wasn't asking that to embarrass him, acknowledging that he probably felt a little awkward being there with all the little kids, but told him the important thing was that he made the decision to be there that day and wouldn't turn 15 or 16 not having ridden a bike. I mentioned my experience as a youth hockey coach and having worked with kids who were first-time hockey players, older than when their teammates first learned to skate, but went on to play on their HS teams, and he was going to do okay on the bike, too. He was still nervous and awkward on the bike when I started working with him, and then I decided to take him down to another part of the parking lot that wasn't being used. I told him we'd go down there so he wouldn't have to worry about running into anyone. What I didn't tell him is that I was hoping that by getting away from the other people he might feel a little less self-conscious about others seeing him struggling. You can guess what came next. He finally figured it out and started riding circles around the parking lot. He was probably a little less thrilled about his Dad taking video of him. ;-) Go volunteer for this; it will be a morning well spent. http://www.signupgenius.com/go/70a0f45adae2ea31-mscr4 _______________________________________________ Bikies mailing list [email protected] http://lists.danenet.org/listinfo.cgi/bikies-danenet.org
