This seems a strange thread topic, but if one of your offspring is dyspraxic it can have some impact in many areas of life. One of those (if you are a bicycle family) may be cycling.
Dyspraxia is more of a scale covering a gazillion activities than a single set of symptoms, but there will usually be an extent to which it affects coordination, balance and spatial awareness.
Our middle child had faced a bit of a struggle learning to master some seemingly simple physical tasks, so learning to ride was going to be tough. But he wanted to get it done. I watched as he struggled and I had a glaum around on the Internet and found - nothing. Lots of bare ladies, but no useful information of cycling and dyspraxia.
In the end (and after many failed plans) I bought a tag-along, to allow him to feel the sensation of balance and the flow in and out of bends while not having to do any balancing or steering himself. It was a fairly desparate, last-ditch purchase, but the effect was electric. He went very quickly from being a non-rider to becoming a tag-along dynamo to wanting to ride his own bike EVERYWHERE. To this day I am amazed at the transformation it brought, when so many other strategies had crumbled and died.
This was several years ago. He is now in his late teens and remains a keen cyclist. He races a little and cycling has provided some of the key moments in his formative years. It would have been so much easier to quietly admit that learning to ride was too difficult for him. As he whips past me on big climbs these days, that notion seems absurd.
Up to quite recently I still has his bike set up with higher bars and a shorter stem than might have seemed appropriate - and he had his bottle on a cage mounted on the bars, as reaching to the usual position caused wobbles. But even that is in the past now. He stoops low over a long stem, rides unfashionably narrow bars and his bidon lives in the frame triangle. TT bars are the next mod, but we'll take it steadily. He dislikes the unpredictability of off-road riding, but on smooth tarmac he is in his element.
Another big change in his cycling progress came with clipless pedals (when he was ten). That may seem young, but before that he'd had trouble keeping his feet in the right place on his pedals. Clipless (once he'd mastered them) was a massive benefit. With the extremities in fixed positions, a lot of the other stuff about riding in traffic and at speed was much more easily acquired. It may seem barmy, but going clipless young can be a great boon for the dyspraxic rider.
Many hours and many miles were spent behind him, getting him to put his thumbs under (not over) his handlebars. There were other quirky idiosyncracies to his riding, all ironed out over months of quiet encouragement and reminders. Sometimes I thought he'd turn round and tell me to kindly go f**k myself. He never did.
Popping out of the saddle still doesn't come entirely naturally, but that is a detail. He can churn along at a good speed and he goes up hills like a rabbit.
All three of our children ride, so I could watch and make comparisons. If you are teaching a child with dyspraxia to ride a bike, it might take a little extra effort on your part (and a lot on theirs) but the rewards are enormous. In terms of acquired balance and coordination the benefits cross over into many other areas.
I am not a doctor and certainly not an expert, but if anyone is in the position I was in eleven years ago with a dyspraxic child who is keen to ride but faces a seemingly impossible challenge, I hope the above offers some cheer.
A word of caution: He mastered it because he wanted to. He really wanted to ride and would not be put off. Had he been indifferent, it would have been a much steeper (or an impossible) hill to climb.
If you are still looking for the initial breakthrough moment teaching a dyspraxic child to ride, do consider a tag-along. There are sunny days ahead.
I hope this post will be of some use to others who face the questions and worries that confronted me on this toipic.
