Training wheels

Your biggest competition in life are often your siblings. I am no exception. My fathers family have the genetics of Goliath (tall and large) while my mothers family are more David (average height and lean). I got Dad's and my brother got Mom's. While in the modern world, there aren't tons of benefits for being big, there are certainly some dividends when you are younger. Most kids are insecure, but it helps when strangers stand in awe of your form. I can imagine growing up a little more average in height and lean in frame can be a little challenging. I think most men dispense with this, but when I was kid this was an issue between me and my brother. My brothers friends would often comment and ask if I could beat my brother up. I would brush it off to spare any unwanted hassle for him and by him. I loved my brother and I didnt want to make him feel "small."

Fast forward to the future. I have two sons of my own. My oldest is 7 and the youngest is 5. We have been trying to teach the oldest to ride his bike without training wheels. He has found the process very difficult and has fought us vigorously. He is introverted so its sometimes difficult for him to share how he feels in words. We have wonderful kids and it finally happened. Our son can ride his bike without training wheels.........its just not the one we had planned. Our youngest son decided that 5 (technically 4) was the age he would throw off his small circular over lords and ride free.

So, as I mentioned, we had been working on our oldest learning to ride. During this process, my wife found a used bike for our youngest that she thought would be better for him. I took the bike out of the van with him and I commented that this bike didn't have training wheels. He informed me that he wanted to ride it. He and I went into the front yard and we practiced a little bit of balancing. My wife is a better teacher of children than me, so she took over from there. Fast forward a week and I look outside and he is basically riding for short distances by himself.  We celebrated by going to get slurpees from 7-11 on bike and he biked the whole way (2 km round trip).

As you can imagine, knowing the dynamics I had as a kid, a part of me was worried. Not wanting to take away from the success of my youngest, I was also aware that my oldest was listening intently. My wife and I lavished praise on him for his success and it was well earned. He has mastered balance with a very limited amount of time. A feet to be sure.

The eye of expectation turns to the elder Vogt. There is a spirit that asks, "why haven't you done it?" I know because I heard it as a kid. My brother would master something and I would anguish at my inability to master his new skill. I'm not opposed to pressure. People need motivations to do things and if its not destructive I am on board. Up until now he had been using approaches like, "Ill think about it," which I knew was his attempt to put it off. Through a heated conversation, he told me that he didn't want to take off training wheels. I told him he had no choice. He gingerly tried again and very quickly threw in the towel.

I understand my eldest. I understand his nature. He is practical by nature. He likes the predictable. He doesn't respond too much to his peers. If he can ride with his training wheels than why should he change methods? He is not a "faster" kind of kid. He doesn't care that other kids dont use training wheels. He really is just happy doing his thing. So now, part of my job is to make him unhappy. I need to force him into circumstances where he has to face his challenges. He doesn't see a need so I need to create one, even if that need is "so papa will leave me alone." Yet, there is also sibling rivalry and I believe this will act on him as well, perhaps more than what I can accomplish.