A very bad way to teach your child to ride a bike.

Throw the bike off the porch and break the training wheels.I'm not saying I recommend it. I'm just saying it works.


Yesterday morning was a bad one. I was up for quite a while the night before mulling over the novel like a math problem, which is what structuring a book is if you ask me. One big giant math problem and part of the reason I became a writer in the first place was that I am not very good at math.

I finally fell asleep around two, and then it was my turn to get up with the kids, which was okay until they started fighting about who was going to ride which bike to the coffee shop.
I tried a technique I'd seen my friend Sadie use, which is to present the boys with their choices and try to let them work it out.
"Here is the situation," I said. "Dawson, you want to ride Liam's bike. Liam, you don't want to share. Dawson, you don't want to ride your own bike. Mommy needs coffee. Is there a way we can work this out so everyone wins?"
"NO!" they wailed.
"Liam, what if you shared and Dawson rode your bike on the way home?"
"I don't feel like sharing."
"Dawson, what if Liam let you ride his bike later when he isn't using it?"
"I'm going to use it every minute all day," Liam said.
"I don't like you," said Dawson.
"It looks like we can't go," I said. "Is this the situation we want?"
Crying ensued. Tempers rose. I tried more reasoning and cajoling, and then, I am not proud to admit, I threw both the bikes off the back porch and into the yard.

Liam burst into tears. Dawson thought it was funny and decided he would ride his own bike to the coffee shop. I tried to quell the mix of feelings--guilt, anger, grief,complete ineptitude--that I often get when I don't get enough sleep and lose my temper.
"You broke my training wheel," Liam said, his sobs beginning to slow down.
"I'm sorry," I said. "I shouldn't have lost my temper. But honey, those are the consequences when you don't share. Sometimes things get broken."
"Actually," Liam said. "Things get broken when you throw them off the porch."



I was hoping we could put this quickly behind us, but we went down to the coffee shop and Liam went up to the first person he saw, who happened to be our friend Dava, and said, "Hi Dava.Dawson is being a jerk."
"Mommy threw our bikes off the porch!!" Dawson said.
"Ah," Dava said. "One of those mornings."
"Yes," I said. "You don't happen to have a bottle of Scotch on you, do you?"
Then Liam went inside and told Emily, who was working behind the counter that I threw his bike off the porch and broke it. It was only 9:30 am.
"I saw a MONSTER UNDER MY BED!" Dawson added.
"You did?" said Emily. "Wow. Did your monster look like Mommy?"

All I have to say is that when everyone knows your business, you have a lot less to hide.

But while I still feel a little bad about the whole thing, I am happy to say that Liam seems to be riding his bike very well without the training wheels.