family biking

How to Teach Your Kids to Love Biking and Walking

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Want to get your kids outside, have more exercise, and lower your carbon footprint? Try biking and walking places with your kids with these five ways to help them love non-car transportation. 

How to Teach Your Kids to Love Biking and Walking (Photo: One little kid pushing another in a little pretend car)

“You said we were walking! Noooooooooooo!” my four-year-old yelled as we tried to get in the car. Oops. I may have mentioned that we would be walking to the library instead of driving.

While it can be inconvenient on days when we’re running late, I do love that my son loves walking and biking places. Active transportation gets kids outside, keeps them moving, builds relationships with neighbors, minimizes greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, and increases kids’ independence.

While our society advertises a minivan as the ultimate family vehicle, it’s actually possible to shift trips away from driving. One of my friends with four kids under seven years old actually doesn’t own a car at all! (I am still in awe of her.)

If you’re interested in making the shift, here are some tips to get you started:

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Guest Post: How to Raise Kids Who Value Biking and Walking

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / Leave a comment

Bicyclists on a triple bicycle in the Tour de Cookie

Among the many skills I want to pass on to my kids, getting around on their own power is actually pretty far up there. Biking and walking places provides exercise, helps get kids outside (with all of the associated benefits!), and provides them a level of independence that they won’t be able to get any other way.

That’s why I’m thrilled that I have a guest post up at Parent.co on teaching kids to value  bicycling and walking.

Here’s the first two paragraphs:

“In my day, we walked a mile uphill both ways in the snow” is the ultimate cliche for cranky parents to compare themselves to kids these days. But walking and biking have huge benefits beyond the ability to complain later on.

Active transportation establishes lifelong healthy habits for life, builds relationships with neighbors, minimizes greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change, and increases kids’ independence. While our society advertises a minivan as the ultimate family vehicle, it is actually possible to shift trips away from the car.

Read the rest at Parent.co!

Outdoors Family Challenge: Day 2 Prompt – Walk or Bike to a Destination

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment

the-outdoors-family-challenge-day-2-prompt

Welcome to Day 2 of the Outdoors Family Challenge! This is a seven day challenge to help get you and your kids outside, living more sustainably, and connecting more with nature and each other. You can read about our experience yesterday or check out the archived prompts on the Outdoors Family Challenge page.  If you would like updates each morning with the activities, sign up for the email list or like my Facebook page.

 

Walk or bike to a destination.

One of the best ways to get outside and connect with your community is to walk or bike places for transportation. Many of my favorite memories as a child were formed from behind a set of handlebars. Now, my family regularly walks to the park and grocery store. 

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Resources for Family Biking and Biking with Kids

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

The Best Resources for Family Biking and Biking with Kids (Photo: Group of families with their bikes)

 

My son and his cherry-red bike loops around the park, over and over again. There’s not really anything exciting about the park, just following a narrow path along some grass, ducking behind the building with the bathrooms, twisting through the playground, and cruising by the pavilion. But he’s riding it as if it’s the Tour de France, pedaling his heart out with the joy of biking.

While we haven’t quite graduated to the road, I love how clearly he is in love with biking. As a kid who loved biking with my parents and a mom who finds freedom on the bike, few things could make me happier.

But I haven’t built his love of biking by myself. I’ve definitely had some help from the family biking community, a world-wide group of parents who love to bike and want to pass it on to their kids. Whether you want to know the best way to carry your kid on your bike or the best bike to purchase for your kid, here are some great places to get started:

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Bike Month: Family Bike Profiles, Kristen Bonkoski

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 2 Comments

Family Biking Profile_ Kristen Bonkoski, Rascal Rides

May was Bike Month! Although it’s now June, I’m finally wrapping up my Family Bike interviews because I got so many responses from awesome people. Over the course of five weeks, I profiled Kathleen from Portland, Stacy from Buffalo, NY, Kate from D.C., Leanne from D.C., Sarah from Chicago and Mike from Fairfax, VA. Keep an eye out for a final post on the best family biking resources I know of.

This final profile is of Kristen Bonkoski, who lives in Salt Lake City, UT with her husband and son. She and her husband run the website Rascal Rides, which has the goal of #morekidsonbikes. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Mini-Profiles, Sarah Sparks Floyd and Mike Essig

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 3 Comments

Bike Month_Family Biking Mini-Profiles

Today is the last day of May, which is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I profiled a number of awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. So far, I’ve interviewed Kathleen from Portland, Stacy from Buffalo, NY, Kate from D.C., and Leanne from D.C. I planned on running one profile a week, but I actually received too many responses for the five weeks of the month! So I’ve got two shorter ones today and one final one later in the week. 

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Family Biking Profiles: Kathleen Youell

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 4 Comments

Family Biking Profiles_ Kathleen Youell-2

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Here’s the fourth of my Bike Month family biking profiles, following Leanne, Kate, and Stacy. This interview comes courtesy of Kathleen Youell, who lives in the bike utopia of Inner SE Portland, OR. (If only we were all so lucky!) She has two children, a son who is almost eleven and a daughter who recently turned nine. While her family is originally from Sacramento, they moved to Oregon about eight years ago. She runs portlandize.com, tweets @kyouell and is one of the administrators of the PDX Cargo Bike Gang Facebook group.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profiles, Stacy Bisker of A Simple Six

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 1 Comment
Family Biking Profiles_ Stacy Bisker of A Simple Six

Yes, these really are all Stacy’s family’s bikes. Courtesy of A Simple Six.

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking. So far, I’ve interviewed Kate and Leanne, both in Washington D.C.

This interview presents a change of scenery, with answers from Stacy Bisker, who lives in the bitter cold of Buffalo, NY. (I’m originally from upstate New York and even thinking of Buffalo gives me chills. I went to a Bills game there once in the winter and it was one of the coldest times of my life.) It’s especially impressive because she has four children (14, 12, 9 and 6 years old) and mainly bikes for transportation. You can find her family on Facebook, Instagram, and the archive of her blog at A Simple Six.

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profile of Kate Gallery

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 9 Comments

Bike Month_ Family Biking Profiles-2

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Following up on my profile of Leanne, here’s Kate Gallery’s story. Kate lives on Washington D.C.’s Capitol Hill with her two-year-old daughter. She’s the owner of Recess Outings, which offers parent-child bicycle tours around the city and is on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. She’s also offering a special deal for blog readers – if you use the discount code ‘timeforrecess’ on the Recess Outings website you get 50% off a ride!

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Bike Month: Family Biking Profiles

/ Shannon Brescher Shea / 5 Comments

May is National Bike Month! To celebrate, I’ll be profiling some awesome families who bike with their kids for transportation and recreation. Later on, I’ll also highlight some excellent resources for family biking.

Bike Month_ Family Biking Profiles

This is not of Leanne.

To start with, here’s a profile of Leanne, who lives in the Petworth neighborhood of Washington, D.C. She kindly answered my call for families willing to be profiled that I put out on the D.C. Family Biking Facebook Group. She lives with her almost-two-year-old daughter and her husband.

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