Pink Think: “The extras are a nice bonus feature, but the main incentive is the musical experience.” – Aaron Neville
I get the note on a Friday afternoon. In a week’s time, my two younger kids would be having a bike rodeo at their elementary school. I look into the face of my youngest, eight-year-old Sabrina, who has handed me the note. I could already sense the defiance in her face, a you-can’t-make-me-do-it expression.
“Great,” I tell her cheerfully, “you can practice on your bike before then.”
“I don’t want to do it,” she says.
***
For the past year, Sabrina’s had her training wheels off the hand-me-down bike from Sierra. And for the past year, she and I would venture out onto our driveway, me behind her, holding onto the bike, her going forward, wobbly, giving me dirty looks when I held on to her too long or when I let go too soon. I just couldn’t win. Some days, I felt like saying, “Fine! Don’t then!” but instead, I would zip my mouth, aching for her as I watched her crash and cry and flail her feet on the ground.
I know how she feels. After all, I didn’t learn how to bike until I was thirty one years old myself.I am determined she won’t have to wait another 23 years to learn.
***
I wonder aloud, to my 12 year old daughter, Sierra, if I should bribe Sabrina into practicing before the rodeo.
“Let’s see,” I muse. “She likes Webkinz.” Webkinz are plush toys that have a unique code which my kids plug into a website to play a virtual pet. “Maybe I can get her one of those little ones.”
Sierra asks, “What if she doesn’t learn?”
I have to agree. What if she doesn’t learn, and to make matters worse, she wouldn’t have a Webkinz? Wouldn’t that be worse?
I want to take the high road. I want her to do it for the sake of learning how to bike, and not because I bribed her.
***
I give it another try.
“Honey,” I say, “we’ll try it, this afternoon, okay?”
“No.”
To heck with high road. “What reward would you want if you were to try until you get it?”
It is the first smile I see on her face. “A stablemate.” A stablemate is a little collectible horse about four inches tall, that my girls are gung-ho over.
“Fine,” I joke, “if you try until you get it, you can have all the stablemates I own.”
As it happens, I’ve forgotten I do own stablemates. One is a gray one I named Sprite that looks like our horse Wixie, and the other is my favorite, Pink Lemonade:
I’m not really attached to them, but they are kind of special to me.I painted them myself at Breyer collectible Fun Days I’ve taken my kids to before.
But Sabrina says, “Yes.” I’m not about to take back my bribe.
***
We start out on the driveway, and venture out on the street. She is so wobbly that I have to stop myself from rushing over on my bike to straighten her up. Further down the street, she bikes with more confidence. Now her problem is how to stop. She has been ramming her front tire onto the curb and I tell her that is not really a good way to stop. But what do I know? I’m only her mother.
We reach a new part of our subdivision which has not filled in yet, and go to a lot with three huge dirt mounds. She’s never been able to bike there with us before. It is a relief to get away from traffic, and Sabrina is biking straighter, less wobbly. She even goes up one mound. And when she zips down the hill, she looks ecstatic.
Later, after we’d already put away the bikes, she asks me, “Can I bike, just for fun?”
“Sure,” I say.
***
We take Sprite and Pink Lemonade to her shelf that is already crammed with stablemates. I tell her that she should take care of them for me.
I don’t know if I did the right thing, bribing her, but every time I pass Sprite and Pink Lemonade on her shelf, I smile.
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It sounds like the bribe was the catalyst for the biking reaction, but now that she’s learned/learning, she’ll almost forget about the bribe. I think you did the right thing.
Oh my goodness! ROFLOL!
My youngest daughter turned 8 in June. We also went on vacation the end of June and first of July (she turned 8 on our vacation). Anyway, we’d been practicing riding her bike forever. She hated it, she wouldn’t do it, she cried, etc. Finally I told her she needed to learn to ride her bike before we could go on our vacation. She learned that night. In like 10 minutes. And now she loves it. lol!
Q: Yeah, sometimes it takes just that little incentive…
Tammy: It’s amazing how quickly kids learn something. Your daughter sounds like my baby :-).
thats a nice way to learn how to ride a bike! I learned when my grandpa took me (9 at time) to a parking lot and pretty much had me go slow and steady till i learned. He is so cool!
Pink Lemonade – cool ^.^
I didn’t want to learn to drive. My parents flat out told me “you will.” And I knew I had to learn.
It worked.
You did what you did and it worked. It sounds fine. There’s no one magically right way to be a parent. And what’s right with one kid might not be right with another one.
Remember the old saying, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.”
Bike rodeo. I picture bikes bucking around, attempting to pitch off their riders — and children in boots attempting to lasso and hog tie a careening and riderless bike let loose onto the playground…..
🙂 Thanks for the images. I am greatly amused.
Oh, and I learned to ride a bike at four pretty much the same way I learned to drive. My parents simply lowered the seat on my brother’s old bike and said, “You’re big enough. You need to learn now.”
I didn’t go through much trama over it, and learned to ride well in a matter of days, but I still preferred my tricycle until I was about 7 — although I can’t recall why for the life of me. I was never scared or less than confident on the bike, yet I chose the tricycle most of the time. Odd.
Tell her congrats for me 🙂 I remember when i was learning to ride a bike, and I took off having the time of my life. I was going pretty fast when I remember my mom (who was standing on our drive way) had not taught me how to stop… I freaked out and as crashed into a fence and did a front flip over the handle bars, I yelled to my mom that she had not taught me how to stop. She was too busy rolling in our drive way laughing at me to help 🙂
Either way i can ride just fine now though 🙂
j.n.: Sounds like a great grandpa alright. Yeah, Pink Lemonade is one sweet horse. My daughter says I can visit her anytime :-).
PW: *rodeo* Careful, they can buck you off. :-).
Laurel: This must be the weekend for biking stories, huh? 🙂 We went for a walk as a family today, and Sabrina wanted to go on her bike. I watched her cruise back and forth; it was like a different child…
Hey, I clicked over from C.S. Salima. I’m fine with bribing. whatever works. I wish my mom bribed me to learn how to ride a bike instead of prohibited me from getting on one. She was one of those zanily protective moms so here I am an adult who can’t ride a bike. Fortunately, my kids didn’t need any bribing and learned to ride.
Nothing wrong with a small bribe from time-to-time.
Nice post, Pink.
Marivic: Welcome! My parents were overprotective, too. No wonder it took me 31 years to learn how to bike. Hey, it’s never too late to learn. I’d get some kneepads, though 🙂
BPV: Thanks. Next time, feel free to bribe me with pecan pie. 🙂
Cute new look on your blog! I like it a lot. 🙂
You have such an awesome way of writing- you do it so well.
As for bribing or not? I say YES! It gives them incentive to do something they didn’t have a desire to do. I bribe my kids ALL the time! haha
Hi Autumn! I thought maybe you’d like my new ‘do.
I only bribe when I’m desperate, and it usually works! 🙂