Peddling, my daughter, and my mother! Oh my!

[trailerparkmedic]

I don't have any advice on your mother (who sounds like an idiot), but is there someone at Child Rum's school that might have some ideas on how to teach her to ride her bike?

Have you showed her how you ride your bike? Maybe if you ride your bike and Mr. Rum pushes her feet at the same time it will help her. I babysat an autistic kid a lot when I was in high school and I had the best results when showing him how to do something. Good luck!

[CaroPhoenix]

Okies ...

Today has been busy for the Rum Family.

We picked up the trike we had ordered for me (in the thread titled "My new toy!" in the main Off Topic section).

Child Rum decided that since Daddy has a bike and now mommy has one too, she wants one.

We went to the local Toys R Us and bought this bike for her. We got her a helmet (I got one too for my trike ), bike gloves, knee pads, and elbow pads. She's really excited.

However, there is a problem: She doesn't seem to understand the concept of peddling. We keep telling her to move her legs forward. We tell her to keep swing her legs. We tell her to push with her feet on the peddles. I've tried being behind her, hands on her feet to get her to move the peddles. I think she's so intent on watching her feet, she forgets to move her legs. Or she doesn't understand that to move the bike, she has to move her feet and legs.

So I call my parents for advice. My mother is royally pissed off that we bought her a 20-inch 2-wheeler with training wheels. What were we thinking!? She's never ridden a trike and so she doesn't know how to push the pedals! And don't you know that she's not like other "normal" kids?!? We're horrible!

Now this is MY MOTHER who tells me not to use Child's Autism as an excuse for her not to do things.

However, when we signed her up for soccer (in a league where other children are diasabled/and/or Autistic), she was like, "How can she play soccer?" and "How can we make her play a sport?" Never mind that Child just loves running and making goals.

Now, she's after us on buying a bike.

What should I say to her? Should I say anything to defend myself? Defend Mr. Rum?

Child Rum really wants to ride a bike, if she didn't have to push the peddles, she'd be off on her own.

please!!!!!