Did we even have a choice? Balance bikes are so much better. There has to be psychological research on how this affects childhood development.
Anyone that has tried to take a turn at speed on a three wheeler knows that training wheels weren’t removed because it was not cool.
I stopped wearing diapers when I stopped soiling my pants. Not because it wasn’t cool, because peeing your pants is cool, but because I learned to not need diapers.
Same with bibs, cribs, and holding sometimes hand to learn to walk.
I can say with the highest level of confidence that learning to ride with training wheels then graduating to riding without them, in no way had a negative effect on my childhood development. In fact, it helped me learn how to ride a bike, greatly expanding on my childhood development.
The development of trusting yourself and developing your skills?
When I was a baby, I slept in a crib with walls around it, but I didn’t stop sleeping in it because it wasn’t cool. I just outgrew it.
Not needing extra protections is a good thing. It means you’re growing.
I remember the day when the training wheels came off my bike and it was glorious. The feeling of success you can only feel as a child when you have mastered something you think you should do. They didn’t come off because they were no longer cool. They were never cool to begin with. And you didn’t have much say in the matter anyway.
I am willing to believe that balance bikes to proper bikes is a better learning experience, according to the boffins. That doesn’t mean though that anybody who learned on training wheels is inferior. People who learned to ride a bike like that also won the Tour de France.
