Bicycle Riding Basics
At what age can a child ride his bicycle without supervision?
The best time to allow a bike rider of any age to go out and ride their their bike by themselves is when that child's ready. But that has to be a parental choice; you need to watch your child, ride with your child, talk to your child and also know your neighorhood. You wouldn't want your child to ride down a really busy street if you live in a community where there's a lot of traffic. You wouldn't want your child to ride in a neighborhood that has poorly maintained streets or sidewalks. You need to look at your environment to see where's the best place to ride. You need to feel comfortable to let your child to ride a bike unsupervised. Do you let them walk to school by themselves? That can be a benchmark. Is your child responsible to follow direction and to come back when you ask them to and to know the neighborhood? Are they really good bike riders? These are questions that you have to answer before you let your child go off on their own. The community will also dictate if your child can ride a bike unsupervised. Traffic is a big concern to a lot of parents when your child is learning to ride a bike. Get to know your community, know your community, get to know your child's ability and skills and ask them if they want to be riding their bikes.
What do I do if my child has a bicycle accident?
As a parent it's really important that you recognize the dangers of any kind of fall from a bike. So the best thing to do as a parent if your child should fall off the bike and hit their head and if they weren't wearing a helmet, you take them in. You can't be too safe. It's very important that you recognize how vulnerable the head is. So any kind of head injury, there doesn't have to be blood, there doesn't have to be a cut, there could be a head injury that you don't know about. So take your child in and have them checked out. If a child falls off and hurts their arm, watch it. If the child is complaining a lot about pain, take them in. But anytime your child falls from a bicycle it's a fall no different from falling off a wall, falling off their bed, falling off the chair. It's a fall and needs to be taken seriously.
