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Don’t Saddle Yourself With Cycle Lesson Costs
Parents spend £841M paying someone else to teach their child to ride a bike
There was a time when teaching you child to ride a bicycle was an essential part of parenthood and childhood. Moving from trike to stabilisers, to finally being on two wheels and wobbling off into the distance is no longer the essential formative experience it once was.
In a recent interview with Variety, Andres Muschietti, director of the forthcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s IT revealed that he had to set up a bike camp for his child actors because “kids today don’t necessarily know how to ride bikes.”
This news was met with disbelief in some quarters, but the truth is, this is not something isolated to child actors and Hollywood. New research has found even the most basic of childhood skills are now being outsourced. Activities such as art and even reading are being avoided by parents in favour of splashing cash on a professional. Teaching your child to ride a bike now sees 3 out of 10 parents swerving the responsibility stating fear and frustration as the cause.
39% were scared their child would hurt themselves, 33% admitted they don’t have the patience and 20% were unsure of how to instruct to their child effectively, according to research from MyVoucherCodes.
Some parents are willing to pay good money for an easier life, with the average spend on cycling lessons in Britain a whopping£841M - that’s £143.63 per family, when combining the research with ONS data. Some parents were even happy to spend in excess of £500 on lessons - a lot considering it takes the majority of children take just two weeks to pick up the skill.
There are a number of reasons that parents give as to why their child can’t ride a bike but the top five are:
- Child can’t get the hang of it (30%)
- Can’t find someone to teach child (23%)
- Do not have the time to teach them (18%)
- Can’t ride a bike themselves (12%)
- I can’t be bothered to teach them (10%)
This apparent parental disinterest seems to be having an effect - 43% of children are now older than the national average age of 5 years old[ii] when they master the skill, and 9% still haven’t learnt how to ride a bike by the age of 18.
Chris Reilly, Managing Director of MyVoucherCodes who commissioned the research said: “Considering 91% of parents described their own experience of learning to ride a bike as positive, it’s surprising to see the number, let alone expense, of parents outsourcing such a key childhood milestone. Perhaps mums and dads just need a bit of help and reassurance, so we’ve teamed up with a cycling coach to create a hints and tips video which can be viewed on MyVoucherCodes.co.uk. We hope this inspires parents to give teaching their child to ride a bike another go!”
[i]https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/families/bulletins/familiesandhouseholds/2016
[ii]https://www.verywell.com/riding-a-bike-2633839