{"id":377,"date":"2012-08-21T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wabikes.org\/2012\/08\/21\/the-value-of-playing-with-bikes\/"},"modified":"2013-01-05T00:19:25","modified_gmt":"2013-01-05T00:19:25","slug":"the-value-of-playing-with-bikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2012\/08\/21\/the-value-of-playing-with-bikes\/","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Playing With Bikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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It was pretty tough to be bored when I was a kid as long as I had my bicycle because my bike was often not a bike.\u00a0 <\/span>When I donned my cowboy hat, fashioned some bridal reins out of a piece of rope and attached it to my handlebars, my bike became a horse.\u00a0 <\/span>My sister and I galloped our horses across the prairie all morning and paid visits to our neighbors.\u00a0 <\/span>Around high noon, we turned our steeds homeward for some lunch.\u00a0 <\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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If some of the neighborhood kids joined us in the afternoon, we became pioneers and formed a bicycle wagon train to journey westward to a new homeland.\u00a0 <\/span>Along the way, we\u2019d gather our wagons in a circle to protect us from outlaws, cougars, and other unseen danger.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Sometimes my sister and I used our bikes to help us construct a kids-only clubhouse.\u00a0 <\/span>Our bikes formed two parallel walls that we draped with an old quilt.\u00a0 <\/span>We spent hours playing games, coloring, reading, and\u2014on more than one occasion\u2014fighting in our clubhouse.<\/span><\/div>\n
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There were times when we used our bike props with disastrous results.\u00a0 <\/span>I still recall the day my sister, the kid next door and I used a bicycle to assist us in climbing a tree.\u00a0 <\/span>With my sister steadying the bike, the neighbor kid and I managed to reach the first limb of the tree.\u00a0 <\/span>Lacking a spotter, my sister\u2019s attempt to climb the tree led to a fall and a broken collarbone.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Fortunately, most of my bike adventures turned out just fine.\u00a0 <\/span>With a bike and a little creative thinking, I kept myself occupied and happy. \u00a0<\/span>And this made my mom happy too because we weren\u2019t in the house and under foot all the time.<\/span><\/div>\n
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I am pleased to report that in this age of smart phones, DVDs and over organized recreation, the creative art of bike play survives.\u00a0 <\/span>I\u2019ve watched my neighbors\u2019 children hold a bike jousting tournament in the alley, tow each other down a snowy street on sleds and saucers, and build a clubhouse similar to the one I built in my childhood.\u00a0 <\/span>And yes, they also just pedal around the neighborhood for fun.<\/span><\/div>\n
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These kids are playing creatively and actively on their own.\u00a0 <\/span>They are learning how to be resourceful, set their own rules, interact with each other, and structure their own play time.\u00a0 <\/span>Those are some pretty handy skills to develop with the aid of a friend\/sibling, a couple of bikes and a few low-tech props.<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was pretty tough to be bored when I was a kid as long as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[54,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health","category-kids"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Value of Playing With Bikes - Washington Bikes<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/wabikes.org\/index.php\/2012\/08\/21\/the-value-of-playing-with-bikes\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Value of Playing With Bikes - 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