How to Help Children Balance On An Electric Scooter

This article will help and guide you to teach your child how to balance on an electric scooter and learn to ride confidently.

Have you recently purchased an electric scooter for your child? Perhaps it was a birthday present or a Christmas present, whatever the occasion, you probably didn’t consider the fact that they would have to learn to ride it. For some children riding a bike or scooter comes naturally, but for others, they have to learn how to balance and get their coordination right to begin scooting.

Teaching your children how to ride an electric scooter can take you some time and effort. For some parents, it can be a struggle to teach their children.

Start with the basics

Safety is the top priority

Teaching children the rules of the road and safety first is very important. In terms of protection and safety equipment, individuals should focus on protecting young children’s heads, knees, and elbows. Make sure they wear a high-quality helmet to protect their head from injuries and make sure they wear protective pads on their elbows and knees.

At what age can a child ride an electric scooter?

An electric scooter is not a toy and does not fit in the ride-on toys category, and it is an electric vehicle, so it must be respected.

When you prepare an electric scooter for your child, you must consider their safety. Generally speaking, the child’s age must be six years old or above.

Can a 5-year-old ride an electric scooter?

When you buy an electric scooter for kids, you will find that the recommended age for most children’s electric scooters is 6-12 years old or 8-12 years old.

The maximum speed limit of most children’s electric scooters is 10 mph, but this is still very fast for a child. So if you want to buy an electric scooter for a 5-year-old child, you need to buy a lower speed limit with a max speed of 5 mph.

Let them start slowly

They will probably explore the electric scooter first and see what they can do with it without even scooting. Let them sit on it, stand on it, push it and use it how they would like. It won’t be long before they are whizzing around!

Show them how to do it

If you or an older sibling has an electric scooter, you can show them how to scoot. Young kids learn by copying, so let them watch you first. If nobody you know has a scooter, you could even show them a few videos on youtube. Many kids have a scoot around to show them what to do.

Next – teach them how to balance

As with bikes, overbalancing on a scooter can mean falling. If they know how to ride a bike without training wheels, you can skip this step, but if not, then there are two different ways depending on the scooter they have.

If you’ve chosen a regular kids’ scooter, you can have them hold the handlebars and place both their feet on the deck while you pull them or teach them about being able to put a foot on the floor to brake and stay standing with one foot still on the deck.

With electric scooters, you can’t exactly lead a child around while it’s on, and they shouldn’t put their foot on the floor to stop it. Instead, get them to balance with one foot on the floor while it’s off and have them practice moving the second foot onto the deck while you hold the scooter still.

Determine their dominant foot

The first thing to determine for any scooter rider is their dominant foot. Like being right or left-handed, most people are right foot dominant, giving this the name “regular stance.” However, there are still many people in the world that are left foot dominant.

There’s nothing abnormal about being left-foot dominant; it’s just less common. There are many ways to determine your child’s footedness, and we’ll describe two of them here:

1. Try having your child stand with both feet about shoulder-width apart on the flat ground.
2. Have them slowly lean forward as if falling until they suddenly put one foot out to catch themselves.
3. The foot they use to stop their fall is their dominant foot.

If that sounds a bit scary for your child, simply have them stand at the bottom of a flight of stairs with both feet flat on the ground. Then ask them to walk up the stairs.

The foot the child chooses to place atop the first step is likely their dominant foot.

Help them find their stance

Once you’ve determined your child’s footedness, it’s essential to teach them that their strong foot (whichever one caught them while falling ) should always be behind their less dominant foot. Their strong foot will be the pushing foot, and their weaker foot will remain on the scooter.

Make sure the scooter is set up correctly

The electric scooter should also be set up accurately for your child’s height. Most e- scooters will have adjustable handlebars, and it’s important to set these at an appropriate size for both rider comfort and safety.

While balancing the scooter for your child, have them stand flat-footed on the deck with proper outdoor sports shoes. Then adjust the handlebars’ height to fall between their hip height and waist height.

While it can be tempting for many kiddos to want the handlebars higher than their waist, discourage them from this option. Handlebars that are too high will cause them to lose control of the scooter. Waist height is a perfect setting for a beginner.

Find a paved area and ride

It’s finally time to get up on that scooter and scoot! Ensure that your child has ample open space in a flat paved area.

Make sure your child has on their helmet and any protective pads. They’ll likely take at least one fall while trying to keep their balance.

If you’re not sure where to find this, try a school parking lot on the weekends or a basketball court at a nearby park – both of these are great options for paved open areas.

Once you’re all set, have your child straddle the scooter with hands on the handlebars and both feet on the ground. Then, have them place their non-dominant foot on the scooter while keeping their dominant foot on the ground. This will ease them into basic scooter balance.

Once they are confident in balancing the scooter while stationary, it’s time to introduce movement.

Teach them how to kick start

The method for riding the electric scooter is to place one foot on the deck, the other on the ground and push forward. After they put effort into pushing the vehicle, it’s time to put all the feet on and keep balance with their body. This is known as a kick scooter.

They can press the accelerator button to ensure it is on a low-speed setting. When they want to stop, they must use the breaks. Try to remind them to go carefully at the beginning of the riding process.

One suggestion for parents is that they can hold the shoulder or the back of children for supporting them. In addition, some parents choose to run behind their children to feel safe and confident with their electric scooters.

Utilise the brakes and button for controlling your speed

On the handlebar of your electric scooter, the button for controlling the speed and brake are located on opposite sides. However, these elements were also designed based on the standards of manufacturers. Therefore, why don’t you utilise these parts for support in your riding process?

Make sure that the first electric scooter of your little children is tall enough so that their feet can touch the ground effectively. As a result, the child feels better and becomes more confident during the riding process.

BIO: 

Nely is an adrenaline junkie and one of her life goals is to sky dive, but until that day she gets her kicks from testing fast electric scooters. Part time scooter fanatic & part time SEO analyst. Nely’s favourite scooter is the Dualtron X.