"Riding
a bike not only improves physical fitness, it also benefits your child’s
learning development and mental health."
Bicycle
has various purposes in childhood development. It is a toy and a way to get around. It often serves all it functions at the same time,
even as your child gets older.
“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a
bike ride,” once President John F Kennedy said.
Bike
riding is a skill that comes with a wide range of benefits.
It’s
fun
Sometimes
it’s the simple things in life that are the most rewarding. Learning to ride a
bike is one of them. Once your child has a bike, cycling is a fun and free
activity that they can enjoy with friends and family for life.
It
keeps child physically active
TheAustralian Guidelines for Health recommend that
children should engage in at least one hour of vigorous physical activity every
day to stay healthy. However, according to TheHeart Foundation, as many as 80% of Australian children aren’t
meeting these guidelines. Encouraging your child to ride a bike while they're
young helps to establish healthy exercise habits that are likely to stay with
them for life.
It
benefits child’s mental health and learning
Riding
a bike not only improves physical fitness, it also benefits your child’s
learning development and mental health. Research shows that students who ride bike to school are more focused and ready to learn, compared
with those who are driven. Taking part in regular physical activity also has
links to increase happiness, as well as giving kids more opportunities to make
social connections.
Riding
a bike improves physical fitness, learning development and mental health.
Cycling
is an activity that all ages can enjoy. Mums, dads, kids, and even grandparents
can take part in a family bike ride. It’s a great way to share some quality
time, and it’s good for you too. Remember, the key to family bike rides is to
have fun. So start slowly and take plenty of breaks to give little riders time
to rest.
It’s
good for the environment
Teaching
your child to ride a bike has long-termbenefits for the environment. Using active transport like
cycling instead of driving reduces carbon emissions, eases traffic congestion
and eliminates parking problems. Less pollution and traffic mean our
communities will become greener, healthier and less stressful places to live.
It’s
an easy way to get around
Cadel
describes bikes as “the perfect vehicle for transport.” And he’s right. Once
your child gets older, riding a bike becomes a quick and healthy way for them
to get to and from school, sporting and play activities. Even better, it saves
you time because your child won’t have to rely on you for lifts. Now that’s a
benefit every parent can relate to!
Learning a language is like
learning to ride a bike.
The
bike analogy highlights the different between language learning and language
acquisition. If you go to class like a dutiful student for a year and learn all
about how the grammar of some language works, but never actually get it very
much and don't read much or do many practice exercises, then you've only
learned, and not acquired. If you drop it and come back a year later, it'll be
like there was nothing there.
If
you get intermediate or even advanced in a language - to the point where there
is a high level of automatically i.e. you don't need to think about
genders, case declension, you can recall the most common 5,000 words at a
normal speed, etc, then you have acquired the language. Understanding
and using a language uses procedural memory, but learning a language uses
declarative memory. Adult language learners go to class to get a leg up by
learning grammar and vocab via declarative memory, and then what they're
supposed to do is go out and practice a bunch in order to build up their
procedural knowledge.
So,
in summary, yes, language is like riding a bike, but only if you ever became
good (like actually good like A+) at it.
Structural
aspects of language, like grammar and the sound system, are learned via
procedural memory. Procedural memory is a memory system known to be involved in
acquiring skills involving sequences, like learning how to ride a bike.
Learning a language is exactly like learning to ride a bike. However, most people do not understand what it
really means to "ride a bike". People assume it means you will never
forget how to do it. This is only true if you rode a lot. If you learned to
ride a bike and then the moment you managed to successfully ride your first few
hundred meters stopped riding for a decade or two, the chances are you would
need to learn from scratch again if you wanted to ride after that decade. Most
kids learn to ride a bike and then literally use it as often and as much as
possible. They go everywhere on their bikes and will ride for hours without
end, even if they have no real destination in mind. They ride because they love
to ride! This translates directly into massive amounts of reinforcements for
the neural pathways used. Every time a skill is used the neural pathways
involved becomes "stronger" and more permanent.
If
you learn a language and for several years use it just as much as you used your
bike when you first got it you will also never lose the ability, or rather the
deterioration will be so slow that you'll be able to pick it up again very fast
at a later date.
