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First, Lucia, the kid down the block who is a few months older than CJ, had learned how to ride her bike without training wheels back in March, while it was still cold out and ice and snow still piled up three feet from the curb.
Then, Zora, the daughter of a friend of hours born five days after CJ, learned how to ride a couple of weeks ago, and then a classmate from daycare.
And that gave us the courage to have her try it out this weekend. A few minutes with Becky, and, voila, CJ was off and pedaling. She still has a hard time starting up, but it’s only been two days.
This is much earlier than I thought CJ would be able to pedal a bike on her own, sans training wheels. And it made me wonder about all the other things that she might be capable of, if we only gave her some gentle encouragement and training. Yes, Tiger Woods was golfing by age two and Mozart was composing from age 5, but I’m not talking about exceptionalism. I’m just talking about basic achievements that she might reasonably be able to reach had we simply exposed her to those activities. Skiing is one example that a friend of mine brings up fairly regularly.
Of course, if she didn’t learn how to ride a bike at 4, she would have at 5 or 6 or 7, just like reading and math. When is later too late? Are there disadvantages to learning too early? We generally believe that “it’s never too early to try”, but if I don’t expose it to her early, am I failing to be the best parent I can be?
Yes, I’m going down the helicopter parent spiral. Oy. Gotta pull out of that.
I know I can only be the best parent I can be, but I can’t fully express how disappointing that sentiment is.
Two other elements of this are digging at me. First, why did we decide to try to teach CJ to ride without training wheels? Because her friends are doing it. When it comes to using her peers as points of comparison, where’s the line between constructive and destructive? Lord knows, I don’t want her comparing my performance as a parent to that of my peers.
Second, if she can surpass my expectations as a four-year-old on something like this, why can’t she meet my expectations on other things?
June 2, 2011 at 12:11 pm |
Really?
(1) You’re a great dad, you have the #1 ingredient, you’re paying attention. So stop fishing for compliments.
(2) Nate learned how to ride because his peers were pressuring him. He was 17. The only antidote to destructive peer pressure is to know yourself, otherwise how will you know which pressure is good “be a scientist!” and which is bad “be a scientist?!?”
(3) She can’t meet your expectations for two reasons: First, everyone’s performance fluctuates, or bowling one strike would mean we hit 300 every time (or a hole in one, or an analogy for tennis winners). So hers does too. Second, your expectations are guaranteed to not be 100% reasonable.
Btw, you’ll tell me if I’m being unduly annoying? Oh yeah: boundaries! Really important.
Thanks.
-Jessica
June 2, 2011 at 12:38 pm |
Uncle Bart is going to be excited to hear this news! Welcome, Ms. CJ, to a lifetime of enjoyment!
June 2, 2011 at 4:43 pm |
Wow,that’s a lot of pink.
June 2, 2011 at 8:19 pm |
all I can say is that she has one kick-ass pink bike. i want one.
June 3, 2011 at 11:07 am |
I think we need to raise the handlebars. funny how it looks too small even though she can barely reach the ground.