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What age is normal for a child to know these things?

michela96's picture

Ride a bike without training wheels?

Tie their own shoes?

My 9yr old step daughter can't do either is this normal?

BethAnne's picture

It depends when their parents teach them. If it weren't for me teaching my sd9 to tie her shoes or suggesting she get a bike without training wheels then helping to take her out on it she would not be able to do these things either.

justkeepstepping's picture

My DS was riding with out training wheels by 4 and tying his shoes at 5 years old.-Only child then

SS was 8 before he could ride with out training wheels and was 7 when I taught him how to tie his shoes.

SD was 7 before she could ride without training wheels and 6 before I taught her how to tie her shoes.

Heck DD is almost 3 and can pedal and steer a 12 inch bike already. SS was 6 and SD was nearly 6 before we were finally able to teach them to pedal a bike with training wheels.

Some parents just choose not to teach their children things. When skids moved in with us BM and GBM were still fully bathing them (together most of the time) and they were 7 and 5 years old. I'll never understand that level of laziness. BM flat out told us it was easier to just do everything for them than it was to teach them how to do it themselves. :?

secret's picture

Depends how much guidance the kid receives... it's like potty training. Around 18 months they are physically "capable" of holding it and doing it in the right place... but nobody really does that, they wait until the child is ready... because, you know, every other mammal waits to teach their young until the young is ready to learn...

how can a kid learn what they need to learn if they don't even know they need to learn it?

He will learn when he is taught. That's the only normal thing.

michela96's picture

Thanks for all that answered. Both my husband and I and bio mother live in housing developments with side streets. My husband has tried to teach her BUT she well how do I say this nicely is very spoiled and coddled which has resulted in her being very fearful of trying new things. She ONLY rides her bike if my husband runs behind her holding the seat. As far as tying shoes again my husband has tried but his daughter throws a fit telling him to just do it for her.

SMforever's picture

My son could not tie his shoes until he was about 11. It definitely wasn't for our lack of trying, he was just a fumble fingers. We didn't worry because he did well in school, played sports, didn't seem to bother him. We used to laugh when I was still tying them at that age. He would just walk around with them untied.

Fast forward 20 years, he is a partner in a law firm. I asked him if he's learned to tie yet...he said, Mom, I bought some slip ons And I am so happy! We laughed again. It must be a quirky thing about their brains. Don't make a big issue of it.

I,also,seem to recall he was a spaz on the bike too. Hasn't hurt his chances in life. Lay off the small stuff and praise what they CAN do.

momjeans's picture

I'm 99% sure that skid, almost 11, still cannot ride a bike.

When we lived in the same city as skid and BM, DH and I took skid and her bike (that we bought and kept for her at our house) out at least twice a week. We lived off of a busy road, so we drove skid and her bike to the nearest park and let her ride her little heart out, in hopes of getting to the point of taking off the training wheels. Never happened. We then moved out of state, and BM had zero desire to keep at it with skid.

Then again, BM didn't learn how to swim until after she married DH and they had a very young skid in swimming lessons. BM also ended-up sleeping with her male swim instructor, so there's that. Priorities.

MIL has been working with skid over the last summer or two, from what I hear. Skid just can't seem to learn. She's "scared."

Skid also didn't tie her own shoes until she was almost 8 years old.

Ninji's picture

SS11 couldn't tie his own shoes until he was 10. And couldn't ride a bike until just a few months ago.

He only learned to ride a bike because the kids in the neighborhood were making fun of him. He didn't "want" to learn these things so he didn't put forth any effort.

ESMOD's picture

The bike thing depends upon whether it was reasonable for her to have the chance to learn... pretty much a parent's thing to teach her too. Oh.. unless you are my younger brother that stole a bike when he was under 4 yo and rode it home.

RE the shoes. Does she not know how to tie them... or not tie them well? I wasn't good at making tight knots in shoes and would always have them come untied. Even today, certain laces I have to double knot.

Maxwell09's picture

At 3 SS could ride his bike, now at five he's finally confident enough to ride without training wheels. SS still cannot tie his shoes. I asked his kindergarten teacher if it was normal and she said "yes" and told me the best way to teach him for 1st grade is to have him sit in our lap and teach them facing the same direction. Just some advice to pass along to your DH on how to teach him.

Rags's picture

My kid was much like this ... when he was 5yo.... at least with the tying the shoes thing. The problem with is shoes was that his mom (my wife) would go with slip on or Velcro closure shoes and he did not learn to tie his shoes because none of them had laces. This is one of those things I put my foot down regarding. So in 1st grade I pitched the slip on and Velcro shoes and got him lace ups. I attempted to teach him to tie his shoes but he wanted nothing of it and it was a battle. So .... I let public embarrassment and humiliation motivate him to learn. He went about a week of being embarrassed at school having to ask his teacher to tie his shoes before she refused to do it any longer. Then his favorite pretty little girl stopped doing it for him and he had to sit at recess because his shoes were not tied and the monitor would not let him onto the play ground.

He approached me one evening late the next week with his shoes in hand and asked me to teach him. He mastered it in 10mins flat.

The bike was a different story. He was so worried that whoever was running behind him would let go that he spent all of his time looking backwards. I informed him that I would not let go unless he looked backwards at me. He would go about 10 feet with me holding the back of the seat then he would look back and I would let go and he would crash and burn. My dad who is the master bike riding instructor/driving instructor/shooting coach/etc..... took over teaching SS to ride a bike and lasted about half a day before he too gave up. I had never seen that happen before.

Even when I demonstrated that the faster we went the easier it was to balance he would still balk.

So... after a few years of tearing my hair out and gnashing my teeth over teaching the Skid to ride his bike I loaded the bike in the back of my truck and the kid in the front with me and headed to a huge park about 5miles from our house. My wife and parents were with us. I unloaded the bike, put the bike with the kid on it at the top of a long grassy hill and shoved him down the slope..... he crashed and burned about halfway down because he looked back to see if I was holding him. I wasn't and was standing at the top of the hill watching him. He got up, got pissed at me, pushed his bike up the hill where I informed him that it was 5 miles back to the house and if he could not ride his bike then he was pushing it home. I also pointed out that he had made it much, much farther than ever before because the hill forced his speed to be high enough for him to easily balance. I grabbed my wife and my parents and we started to hike around the hike and bike trail loop. As we walked away from the kid I told him he had until we returned from our walk to figure it out or he was pushing his bike home. About 10mins later he rode past us like he had been doing it for years.

Sometimes it takes holding a kid's feet to the proverbial fire to get them to step up... and realizing that old age, experience, and treachery will overcome youth and inexperience every time. }:)

NotMySelfishLazyLoudFatKid's picture

All my kids learned to tie shoes around 5. Im trying to teach my DD5 right now. She can do the first couple of steps but she really wants to.

SD9 on the other hand, pretends she doesn't know how. I say pretend because she has no problem on front of me. In front of her parents is a different story. BM is still putting the kids shoes on for her for FFS. DH refuses and has her tuck them in.

RainbowsAndDaisies's picture

Those are things that kids need to be taught by their parents / caregivers. If the kid can't tie their shoes, then teach them. It took about six months to teach stepkid then eight to ride a bike, and for the first three months I kept stepkid in the grass. Everyone, children included, learn in their own time, in their own way, at their own pace.