Housekeeping: Big Bend Oil Field Has Been Updated

The information is all available at NDIC website, but for folks who have limited time, they may want to go to the link and quickly scroll through. I know "anonymous" prefers to find this data for herself at the NDIC website. Go for it.

Big Bend is an incredible story; "owned" by Slawson.

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A Note for the Granddaughters

The granddaughters have the best dad in the world, of course. Their new bikes arrived this past week. He put them together and two days ago we took them out for the first time. The older one had learned to ride a couple years of ago, but had not ridden in a long time, and remains a bit uncomfortable riding, a bit unsure of herself. But in less than 15 minutes she was back up to speed, riding and doing quite well. It is frustrating that children's bikes are so heavy; adults pay a lot for light bikes, and it's worth it. But she seems not to complain. The tires need air; we will buy a pump today.

Meanwhile, the five-year-old is incredible. She was on a borrowed bike for a few times last summer when we were out in California, but mostly just getting the feel of a two-wheeler while I held / pushed it.

So, out to the park with training wheels two days ago. We noticed that the training wheels actually seemed to make the bike more difficult to ride than necessary. She told me to take the training wheels off. She (we) practiced for about 30 minutes.

Yesterday we went back out to the park. Wow, in less than 15 minutes she was on her own.

By the end of 30 minutes she was maneuvering through the obstacle course at the top of the hill. I was quite impressed. In two 30-minute sessions she was riding on her own.

I have never been fond of training wheels.

For the older granddaughter, lots of emotion. For the younger granddaughter, it's all business. Her father thinks she will grow up to be a dictator of a small country.

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I honestly don't remember how I learned to ride a bike. I'm pretty sure my parents were not involved; they had too many children and they both worked. I'm not even sure how they afforded bikes for all of us. Looking back, I don't know how they afforded the things they provided for us. But I digress.

A bit of rambling on teaching children to ride a bike. When to start? The younger the better.

Training wheels seem to be a substitute for parents who don't have the time to practice with the child. [As I ramble, I vaguely remember having training wheels and vaguely remember having them for a long time; going down driveways or up driveways where cement meets the asphalt was always very, very difficult. Eventually, the bike became my best friend.]

Some children have a longer attention span than others. Tailor the length of the training sessions to the attention span of the child. Set no long term goals in terms of when the child will be successful. In some cases, no goals at all need to be set. The child that has significant difficulty, set short term goals.

The older granddaughter had great difficulty learning to ride; she is very emotional, easy to become frustrated, very unsure of herself.

So, when I started working with her, it became clear she needed very short term goals.  For the first week, we limited each day's training session to less than 5 minutes. Five minutes. She did not have time to get frustrated. Our goal: from one crack in the sidewalk to the next crack in the sidewalk. I can't remember how long it took to reach that goal. I think it was a week. But eventually, she was able to get from one crack to the next. That's about three feet. Every day we went out: we used the watch to time the five minutes and that was it. Generally she was ready to quit at the end of five minutes, but even if she wanted to go longer, I didn't stretch the time much.

Once we had the first three feet, it got easier, of course, but even then, the training sessions couldn't last longer than 10 minutes or so.

The younger granddaughter needed no short term goals; she learned way too fast. In less than two 30-minute sessions as noted above.  

Oh, one thing about falling over, tipping to the side and falling. With the younger child I "discovered" this trick. I held her, while she was on the bike, upright, and then asked her which way she wanted to fall (which foot to hit the ground first). Then I had her put that foot out and I leaned her over. There she was, at about 30 degrees, leaning to the side, both hands on the handlebar. I told her to hold that pose and take a deep breath. Then I got in front of her as if I was going to take a picture. I was "training" her muscles and her "memory" to go to the position if she felt herself starting to fall. That paid huge dividends. She felt in control. She was no longer afraid of falling, because she knew she wasn't going to fall. If she started to tip: a) right foot out; b) stop, rest on that right foot; both hands on handlebars; and, then, most important, c) take a deep breath, and act as if the maneuver was planned. No need to let others know that you were out of control. Smile. 

So,

• earlier the better
• five to 30 minutes every day, depending on the temperament of the child
• no long term goals in terms of "when" to be successful; they will eventually learn
• short term goals/milestones, if necessary
• no training wheels if at all possible
• teach them how to prepare to fall; and then to hold that pose for a photo op