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Roller skating is a leisure activity that can be performed in a group. Family time at most homes is synonymous to lazily watching the television or most likely playing an indoor game. How about enjoying Roller Skating together? Do you wish to know how to teach a kid to roller skate?
It is a fun activity which can be enjoyed together as a group with parents and children. It is a joyful physical activity.
Do you wish your child to find one's balance and movement while roller skating? A activity which allows having a healthy lifestyle and making some new friends!
Knowing some roller skating tips and tricks, roller skating lessons for beginners, posture and exercises.
Let’s talk about how to roller skate for kids.
Roller Skating Lessons For Beginners
How to Start?
Before you teach your child how to begin roller skating, you need to first provide the items of protection. For sure your child's safety is your biggest priority.
Roller Skating Safety Measures:
- Choose the apt roller boots for your child's feet
- Purchasing the protective gears
- Physiological preparation
Apt skate boots are the top of the priority when you begin with. Buying a bigger size will create difficulty for the child to control and find that balance. Smaller size skates will deform the legs. Both of which are highly risky in the long run.
Wear the right gear:
The first step at learning any new sport is to wear the proper gear.
As little ones learn to walk on wheels, falls are inevitable and so safety is of utmost importance. A protective gear to help combat the fear of falling is quite needed.
Wearing the following helps them learn that it's okay to fall
- Knee pads
- Elbow pads
- Wrist pads
- Helmet
Once your child garners the courage to adapt and stand on the roller skates with confidence, you can begin the training.
- Patience is the key: You need to teach the child in a fun way through play. Developing the interest of the child is of utmost importance.
If it somehow didn't work today, don't demotivate or shout at your kid just for falling down. A step on roller skates requires a lot of patience and perseverance.
- Teach them posture: Proper posture is the next important thing once you have trained your child to stand with roller skates on. Standing on the roller skates with the right posture will make it easy and faster to learn roller skating later. This is a vital point in basic training.
How does the proper posture look?
One needs to tilt the entire body forward not just with the shoulders. How do you generally do that? The toes have to be apart and the heels together and knees have to bend slightly and then the entire body has to be forward tilting.
Allow your kid to be standing near a wall or furniture initially as support. Be on the roller skates and initially with both hands hold the support and then balancing with one hand.- Start at home: The posture of walking and mastering it can start at home by walking on the carpet or the lawn and then taking them to the roads to hone the skill further.
- Skate with them: If your child is lacking confidence on roller skates, hold his hand and pull him along making him keep his feet next to each other parallel is a vital trick.
- Learning the Exercise: Begin with simple and easy exercises and only when then master them, increase the difficulty level.
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Initial exercises
If your child is afraid of roller skating, hold him by your hand and when he's in the right posture pull him towards you.Help your child to learn the way of moving forward by alternatively pushing off with right and left foot.
To avoid your child from abandoning the activity due to lack of confidence or falling down, you need to teach him simple exercises and then gradually increase the difficulty level.
- The Flashlight:Look out for a asphalt and then using coloured chalks draw circles over it. Tell the child that he needs to go around them.
- Initially the heels have to be together and the toes have to be apart. Later the feet have to be apart and spread evenly around the first circle and later brought together.
Make your child understand that the feet shouldn’t be clasped together tightly as you have to cover the circles there after.
- "Snake Figure":While going from side to side, the child will use the heels to push off and the feet will be positioned parallel to each other and then bringing the feet together. Once the forward movement is learned by the child, the backward movement can now be taught.
- "Figure Eight":Similar to the Snake figure exercise, the only difference is that the child has to be cross legged.
How to Stop while Roller Skating?
There are multiple ways to stop when on the roller skates. At the beginner level, the simplest is to use an obstacle to stop. The obstacle could be a tree, lamppost, you or even another friend.Prevent your child from getting hurt or falling down by keeping a watch on them.
Another way is to jump on the law and take a few steps ahead.
Don’t make this a habit with your child. Make him learn the technique of applying brakes which are present at the backside of the boot. This can be done by raising the toes after extending one leg and using the heel to press the brake. The same time the other knee is bent similar to the sitting position a bit.
Learning to fall while Roller Sakting?
Knowing how to fall down is quite important while learning to roller skate. While falling down the child should fall forward and the fall should be as slippery as possible.
Here's how the chronological order of contact happens after the fall.
- Knee pads
- Elbow pads
- Wrist pads
When the child is at a low speed, the child falls on the knee. If the child is falling towrds the back he should lean forward by bending his knees. This will ensure that he either balances himself or has a knee pad fall.
Though not recommended as it’s not the best but you can still fall on the elbow pads. The worst though would be to have a backward fall on the extended arm.
While giving Roller skating lessons to beginners and to teach a child to roller skate safety measures are also equally important.
There are other safety measures along with the protective equipment.
Let's dig into the safety rules....
Safety rules when roller skating
- The laced and firmly fixed boots should be a continuance of the kid’s feet.
- Don't allow your child to go on the roads or overcrowded places if he/she is a beginner.
- The wheels will be disabled very quickly in case we skate on sand or puddle.
- Refrain from roller skating on wet asphalt, as it requires extra care.
- Regulate the speed of your child’s movement.
- Take care when other toddlers and young kids are in your way.
Finally!
All the talks about beginning to roller skate to talks about falling, stopping and safety measures will lead you to know how to teach a kid to roller skate. Following all these rules and persistence in mastering roller skating will allow your child not to get hurt seriously and safely enjoy the freedom of movement.
In the next articles you can teach your child different ways of learning how to jump and high speed skating.
Frequently asked questions
1. What age can a child learn to roller skate?
Some parents who skate put their children into skating as early as possible once they start walking confidently. Children as young as three years can skate.
2. Can 2 year old roller skate?
Children can skate as soon as they can walk confidently. You know your child's fitness level and ability. We have seen 2 year old's skate too.
3. Why is roller skating so hard?
It completely depends on you how much you put in. Once you learn the balance and precision and start with the basics of learning it with the help of a support and gradually moving on, it isn't any hard.
4. Is roller skating bad for the knees?
In fact, if you are having pain in your knees or suffering from chronic joint pain, roller skating is the best form of exercise. It helps in the fluid movement in the joints releasing all the muscle tension.
5. How long does it take to learn roller skating?
It's quite personal, but 10 rides should be enough to start getting the feel of skates and make you comfortable. I learnt it in 5 rides of 2 hours of rolling. I could skate comfortably forward and backward within a month of skating 1-2 times in a week. If you skate relatively often you won't take more than two months.
Hello folks! I’m Digvita, a passionate writer and a sports enthusiast. An outdoor game lover, sports were integrated into my life. From the varied sports to enjoy, skating fascinated me from a young age. Today, as a proud skater; this opportunity to combine my love for skating and writing by sharing my knowledge and experience about skating with you all is merit. I hope my articles encourage and inspire you towards skating. If you are contented with my articles, do shower some love by liking, commenting and sharing them. Your feedback will motive me to write on!