meet the flinstones

April 30, 2008 11:17 AM

An email from one of my wifes co-workers - "Last night when I picked up [Child], he was playing outside. I mentioned to one of the PT older caregivers that I was going to get him a tricycle and asked if he rode them there. She said no and pointed to the older kids’ side and indicated that they were all over there (these are kids ages 3 on up) and said that the funny thing about the boys is that they sit on the tricycle and try to push it with their feet…and don’t use the pedals. She said EVERY single one of them do that…" Why? My son does the same thing. He won't use the pedals.
posted by ducktape to society & culture (20 comments total)

Are you saying the only the boys push with their feet, and the girls definitely use the pedals? I know a (4 yr old) boy who doesn't use the pedals because he's not coordinated enough to make them continuously go around.
posted by desjardins at 11:27 AM on April 30

They probably learn by imitation. One boy did that and the others all saw "that's how boys ride tricycles". I bet if you ask him, he'd tell you that "pedaling is what girls do."
posted by Class Goat at 11:27 AM on April 30 [1 favorite]

Two suggestions:

a) It's a new technology for him that requires a form of propulsion unfamiliar to him.

b) Have you ever tried to pedal a tricycle? There's a reason why most bikes have the pedals linked to the rear wheel.
posted by furtive at 11:28 AM on April 30 [1 favorite]

Well, if I can take a wild interpretation on Piaget. At three, they are still moving into the Preoperational phase. As such, they can look at a tricycle and get that the wheels move forward. But legs propel things, and so the pedals would add a second level of logic to the game which they might not yet fully understand.

Psychologists, parents, and others feel free to ignore me or rip this apart.
posted by munchingzombie at 11:31 AM on April 30 [1 favorite]

Matching anecdote with anecdote: I've got a son and a daughter. They both pushed with their feet when they were learning how to ride trikes (around 18 months) and now they both pedal.
posted by The corpse in the library at 11:32 AM on April 30

Maybe he'd prefer a regular two-wheeler with the pedals removed. As I understand it this is considered a superior method for teaching kids how to ride bikes (because it teaches balance).
posted by alexei at 11:33 AM on April 30

Using the pedals is more developmentally advanced than pushing with feet. So the natural progression is that they start by pushing with feet, then learn to pedal. There's nothing strange about it.
posted by jujube at 11:33 AM on April 30

Pedaling involes a certain amount of balance, even on an object that's already balanced (with extra wheels)- you have to be able to push with a regular amount of force to balance your foot on the pedal to keep it from falling or flying off.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:34 AM on April 30

I should also mention that he'll be 3 soon.
He doesn't really play with any other kids often, so he's not immatating anyone. Plus he's had tricycles around for at least a year now, and the wife and I have tried to explain and demonstrate the pedal concept with no luck.
Not that we're worried about it or anything, I just kinda think its odd.
posted by ducktape at 11:34 AM on April 30

Previously.
posted by halogen at 11:41 AM on April 30

Yup, pushing with feet = definately developmentally appropriate for almost 3.
posted by jujube at 11:42 AM on April 30

For what it's worth, my three year old son is the same way. No interest at all in pedaling the tricycle -- and pedaling a tricycle is nothing at all like pedaling a bike, so it's not all that useful a skill (maybe if he grows up to ride a recumbent . . . ) For him, the motion of his legs, which is pushing FORWARD on the tricycle because of how he is sitting, doesn't make sense.

He does, however, adore his Like-a-bike (here, if you can swallow the outrageous cost, or buy one of the perfectly good knock-offs). You may find it's perfect for your three year old. It's designed for pedal-free scooting and it teaches balance and prepares for the transition to pedals without training wheels. My kid is so fast on his that I can't keep up -- not always a good thing.
posted by The Bellman at 11:50 AM on April 30

My daughter was pedaling her trike at three. Before she got the hang of it she would kind of rock it by pushing the pedals forward a little and then bring them back. She never pushed with her feet, however.
posted by curlyelk at 11:55 AM on April 30

Boys of 3 are usually not developmentally ready for pedals. Of course there's a wide range, but in general this doesn't happen until school age, and when it does, it's like a light clicks on or something (actually pretty amazing to see), and then you will be buying him a bike with training wheels.

Don't sweat it. This is absolutely normal!
posted by misha at 11:56 AM on April 30

Two reasons:

1. It's harder than pushing with your feet, and developmentally more advanced.

2. It's less efficient than pushing with your feet, and slower. So even once they figure out how to pedal, it doesn't take much to figure out that pedaling a tricycle is inferior to pushing with your feet.
posted by The World Famous at 12:16 PM on April 30

I have 2.9 year old twins. One, who is much more coordinated, rides a trike with the pedals, the other still pushes. It will probably be another two+ months until he is able to use the pedals.
posted by tickettrader at 12:58 PM on April 30

If you want the boy to use pedals, get him a Big Wheel. Those things are a lot easier and safer to pedal than a conventional trike, and they're hard to push with feet. So, kids generally "get" the pedal thing pretty quickly on a Big Wheel.

Red-rum, red-rum, red-rum...
posted by paulsc at 1:22 PM on April 30

It sounds developmentally appropriate, from my experience. However, from the way the email was worded, I wonder if there is also some gender association going on -- especially if the caregiver came right out and said the boys do it this way, as opposed to some of the kids. (And I wonder if she reinforces gender roles or activities.)
posted by acoutu at 2:50 PM on April 30

The developmental aspect you're talking about is usually charted as "major motor" or "gross motor." Believe it or not, at this age girls have a slight edge on boys, developing just a touch faster. Individual variation among kids is much greater than the average gender difference, though.
posted by ikkyu2 at 11:11 PM on April 30

Many years ago I worked as a swim instructor for a Montessori School where I worked with kids aged 4-6. They were far and above the nicest, smartest kids I have ever met.

In the process of teaching them the way to kick for their first stroke (flutter kick) a lot of kids would instead do what my coworkers and I came to call (coincidentally) "the bike kick." To describe it, they would pull up one knee towards their chest and then push out hard completely extending their leg with the sole of their foot remaining perpendicular to the rest of their body. They would do this alternately with both legs and so it looked like they were attempting to pedal a bike. Needless to say this kick wasn't effective in the least.

For the vast majority of the kids 5 to 6, learning that this alternate method wasn't affective was quick and they quickly picked up the actual kick we were trying to teach. However, the 4 year olds weren't so adaptive. It took a long time and a lot of reinforcement to help them remember that their instinctive "bike kick" wasn't going to get them anywhere.

The entire time this went on it I found it particularly interesting and one day I realize that the bike kick was simply the children attempting to "walk" through the water. This was the series of movements that these children had hard wired into their brains to achieve forward momentum. I'm convinced that if that "bike kick" had been even slightly productive at keeping those children readily afloat, that it would have been much more difficult to get them to learn anything else.

I'm no developmental expert but it seems that pedaling a tricycle would be very similar. Maybe at that age forward momentum is ingrained in the minds of children to be a "one foot in front of the other" kind of thing? I propose that pushing the pedals wouldn't be very intuitive and also that it would be a completely new system of coordination to learn. Why bother when you have another technique that works (pushing with feet)? Sure it might not be efficient but something tells me that's not exactly a priority :)

I'm interested if anyone has any insight on this theory, feel free to MeFi Mail me.
posted by JakeLL at 12:48 AM on May 1 [1 favorite]