The 6th year of life is a turning point for many children. It seems like that is the year kids learn how to swim, how to ride their bikes, and they start asking questions that are a little more difficult to answer. I did those things when I was six. I also learned that Dad wouldn’t always be there for me, but that I could find the strength to go on without him.
There comes a time in all of our lives when we have to take the training wheels off. We start by feeding themselves, going to the bathroom on our own, and getting dressed. Eventually we choose our friends, register for high school classes, drive a car, and get a job. Our instinct as parents is to prevent our children from falling and getting hurt as they make these life choices. We don’t want to see our children suffering because of bad decisions. The problem with this is that we humans often learn by doing, and by failing. To learn how to make decisions, we need to make decisions. As parents, it’s OK to be training wheels for our kids, but eventually they need to learn how to ride the bike on their own, even if they get hurt.
When I was 6 years old we lived on Dragon Killer Circle. What a great name for a street! We lived in single family, Navy housing, and Dragon Killer Circle had no through traffic. A perfect place to learn how to ride a bike. Recently, I’ve seen some tiny tykes pushing themselves around on miniature bicycles without any pedals. That’s a neat way to learn, but I didn’t have that. I had the good old fashioned training wheels. They were terrible.
Think about it. They only supported the back tire. It’s as if someone was trying to design an unholy tricycle/bicycle hybrid that was made to tip over. They didn’t teach balance, and if you tried to turn, the training wheels prevented you from leaning into it. The only thing left to do was pedal straight, on a newly paved road. God forbid that a small rock, or a crack in the sidewalk would catch under one of those hard, rubber training wheels.
Fortunately, Dragon Killer Circle was a nice, smooth road with very little traffic on it. I was able to pedal straight, hop off, turn around, get back on, and pedal back, over and over. Dad raised the training wheels a bit so I’d have to balance more. I hacked the system though, and would ride the left training wheel hard, leaning precariously. This made it tough to ride in a straight line, so I’d have to continually adjust, slowly meandering down the street like a drunkard with a shortened left leg. Hop off, turn around, and pedal back. (Hiccup)
Eventually it was time. Dad took the training wheels off. “Don’t worry, I’ll be holding on to the back,” he assured me.
I remember the sun and the wind. I remember the freedom of peddling and knowing that Dad was there to make sure I didn’t fall. I went so fast that it brought tears to my little eyes. I had a huge grin on my face. The grin of a kid experiencing a wondrous freedom for the very first time. I heard Dad whooping and cheering me on, which encouraged me to peddle faster, but something was amiss. In the back of my mind I realized that it sounded like Dad was pretty far away. I looked over my shoulder and there he was in the distance, shouting, waving, and laughing. Way in the distance.
“Dad!?!?” I choke-screamed, as the bike started wobbling. I stopped peddling and tried to control the left and right twisting of the front tire, but fear overtook me. Like Peter on the raging waves, all I could see was the curb and the street racing by so incredibly dangerously fast. Without Dad to support me I couldn’t do it. I crashed spectacularly. I say it was spectacular because Dad came running up laughing and throwing around words like “PHENOMENAL” and “AWESOME.” Plus, there was a lot of blood, and as we all know there is a direct correlation between bloodiness and epicness when we’re reliving childhood adventures.
I felt betrayed by Dad. He said he would be there for me. He claimed I was going “so fast” that he couldn’t keep up. Plus, look how far I had gone without him! That mollified my anger a little bit as I recalled the speed and freedom of the wild ride. I wanted to do it again, and (spoiler alert) I soon learned how to ride a bicycle. I don’t remember any of the other lessons or how many times I fell. I do remember that first crash though, and the realization that I could accomplish something on my own. I was a Dragon Killer.
That is probably my earliest memory of Dad, and it is perfect. It is Dad supporting, encouraging, and telling a little fib, as he helped me work through a quintessential childhood challenge. Lianne just read a book titled, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed. Dad let go. I failed. And because of that failure I was able to succeed. As parents we need to take the training wheels off, let go, and then cheer like crazy as our kids go slay some dragons.