Look, Mom, No Training Wheels! Or, Singularity is in an Expansive Phase

Singularity suddenly seems to be in a phase of being open to new things. If you read my previous post, you know that he is now playing chess with Klailklop. He is also spending more and more time without his headphones. 

And now he is finally riding his bicycle without training wheels! 

This will only seem amazing to you if you know the back story. When Singularity was in kindergarten and first grade, he participated in his school's Adapted Physical Education program, in which the students worked on learning to ride a bike every other week. In the alternating weeks, they roller skated. (It has probably been a while since I have sung the praises of the services we have received from our school district and the caring and effective professionals who provide them. We continue to be incredibly fortunate!) 

Six-year-old Singularity riding his bicycle

Anyway, during his first grade year, Singularity mastered riding a two-wheeler. He was a fantastic rider. The summer after first grade, we went on a long road trip, during which we spent a day on Mackinac Island on Michigan's upper peninsula. This is a car-free island, so we rented bicycles, and in the course of the day we rode to a couple of destinations, as well as riding the 8-mile bicycle road around the edge of the island. 

Not only was Singularity a capable rider, but he also took great joy in riding. It was as if all of the cylinders in his brain and body were firing perfectly. He didn't appear to have any sensory issues while he was riding. He was very aware of what was going on around him. He knew when to slow down and when it was all right to speed up. He could respond in real-time to the conditions around him. 

Until he couldn't. 

There was a specific incident that caused him to become very frightened of bicycling. One day during the summer after his first grade year, he and I were riding on the bike path near our house, and we came to the intersection with the major road through our town. The light was green as we approached, but the walk sign was not illuminated. I entered the crosswalk, knowing that the light had just turned green and that we had plenty of time. Singularity, however, refused to enter the intersection without the walk sign. And the light turned red while I was still in the crosswalk. I had to backtrack to where Singularity was waiting. 

I didn't think anything of it at the time, but Singularity was thinking about it, and a couple of weeks later he simply refused to ride his bike again. It was heartbreaking to Klailklop, who is a bicyclist and transportation activist. Bicycling had been a rare activity that Klailklop and Singularity had enjoyed together. Such a loss. 

With me, Singularity talked a lot about how what I had done was dangerous and how bicycling in general was dangerous. I signed a contract with him and agreed not to do anything unsafe, but it made no difference. 

At one point, Singularity said that he would try riding again if he could use training wheels. Klailklop resisted that idea, as it represented such a setback. However, after about a year and a half of no bicycling, Singularity refused to ride without the training wheels. 

Autism Parent Maxim: If what you are doing isn't working, it is time to try something else. 

We finally put the training wheels back on. I think that this must have been around the time Singularity started taking Prozac and speaking to Klailklop again. He still didn't really want to ride the bike. We tried working on it in ABA, but we still didn't get very far. 

Until we did. 

Singularity had been riding his bike occasionally with the training wheels on for most of this school year. He would not ride on the street and insisted on riding on the sidewalk when no bike path was available. At first, he went out of his way to rely on the training wheels. We raised the training wheels. He relied on them less and less, and eventually it became a bit comical to see this kid riding a bicycle with training wheels that never touched the ground. We have gone on some rides of several miles with friends. But he was still not ready to take off the training wheels.  

Until he was. 

Last week, all fourth graders at his school had a special bicycling program, with an hour of drills followed by a ride in the community, on the roads. This sounded like a lot for Singularity to manage, so I got in touch with the school to fill them in on the situation -- that Singularity was still using his training wheels and that he wouldn't ride on the street. His wonderful team at school assured us that they would give him incentives to participate as much as possible in the program.

The night before the program, I was able to get him to tell me that the thing he felt unsure about, the thing that had made him want to keep the training wheels, was that he didn't remember how to get started. They clearly must have focused on that with him during the instruction part of the program, because he let them take the training wheels off! He practiced riding in the school yard with some of his classmates, while the others went on their community outing. We rode our bikes home from school that afternoon, and we have ridden every day since then. 

Yay, Singularity!!!