Introduction

It's a bit quiet here but that's usually the case with most forums that haven't been going for very long unless they are about football or Big Brother. I stumbled upon this forum when trying to find information on teaching my 12 YO son how to ride a bike. This is something he still can't do and he has no motivation to want to learn. I found out that many children with Asperger syndrome have difficulty learning to ride a bike but if they are motivated by their peers then they eventually master it. All the peer pressure vanished and so did the motivation after he started home education. I think he was the only person in Y5 at school who couldn't ride a bike.

Talking about school, my son attended two horrible primary schools in Leicester before starting home education at 10. He couldn't take the stress of school or the bullying. It was destroying him. Support for children with Asperger syndrome is very poor in Leicester. I used to think the primary curriculum of today was much better than when I was at school. How wrong was I. Children have to do what the National Curriculum tells them. There's no room for individuality or free thinking. School is all about conformity to produce identikit people for some industrial production line of the future. My son is very good at maths and is planning on taking the GCSE next year. I think IGCSE rather than GCSE is better because it is all exam and no coursework and the questions are supposed to be phrased in an easier way for people with Asperger syndrome to understand. He was also planning on taking an IGCSE in computing but is now thinking of moving directly into AS level.

I dread to think what would have happened if he had gone to secondary school in Leicester. The schools are MASSIVE with over a thousand children. Gang culture, cliques, and dog-eat-dog style bullying are rampant. There's no way he could have survived let alone flourished. I hope I don't upset anybody here who likes Leicester but that city has gone downhill badly in most respects over the past 10 years. The council officials got a bit uptight when I took my son out of school, but thankfully, I have now moved out to an area with a more positive attitude towards home education.

Home education and Asperger syndrome seem to be very different worlds. Most home education websites have little to say about Asperger syndrome. Most Asperger syndrome websites are school centric and treat home education as a last resort. This forum appears to combine the two perfectly.

Hi,
We also found school a disaster - actually for bother ours kids not just our son with AS. He also has very little inclination to ride his bike though will go out and practise when pushed. But you can get through life without it

I dislike the attitude of home education as a last resort - it's such a great method of education, while schools are spiralling ever deeper into chaos. I suppose many of us have approached it in that way, when our kids were not thriving in... wish we'd done it first

I like the statement "The parents believe that their precious time and effort will be put to much better use educating their children rather than fighting the system" on the opening page of the forum. Some people think it's cowardice to cut and run rather than fight, but HE appears to be succeeding with us. A lot of parents who were initially very hesitant of HE say they wish they had done it in the first place. I agree with you that schools are spiralling ever deeper into chaos.

My son's primary school offered a week long cycling training course to all Y4 children. I had a word with the course organisers beforehand to find out if they could teach my son to ride a bike. They were not forthcoming and had difficulty understanding how a 9 YO couldn't ride without stabilisers unless they were disabled. He had a mountain bike with 20 inch wheels and 6 gears when he was 7 but lacked the balance and co-ordination to ride it.

My son had almost no inclination to learn to ride a bike even whilst at primary school. When he was 3 he had a pedal powered jeep that he loved riding and would take outside almost every day. Eventually he outgrew the jeep but for some strange reason took no interest in bikes. We bought him a bike with 16 inch wheels but he was very reluctant to even go outside and practice.

Only when he was HE at 13 did he show enthusiasm for riding a bike. He selected a lightweight BMX that cost nearly £200 because he thought it would be the easiest bike to ride. Despite having balance and co-ordination problems it only took him two days from buying it before he was riding it. He practiced in an empty car park using a similar method to that described here. I particularly like the bit mentioned about BMXs with 3-piece cranks. My son's BMX is fitted with them and they were detached when he was learning to ride then re-attached when he thought he was able to use the pedals. I think it would be a sensible move if all children's bikes were fitted with them.

My son has been out on his bike most days since he learned to ride. Initially he would only go out locally during the school day to avoid encountering bullies from school who might nick his bike, and he would ride outside the locality at weekends.