The Benefits of Balance Bikes for Toddlers Part III

In our previous two articles we have presented rich and hopefully illuminating information about the amazing benefits of balance bikes for toddlers.

So far we have provided you with some balance bike golden nuggets that have covered the physical, social and emotional benefits that riding a balance bike can create for your child.

Today, we finish our three-part series and present you with an in depth capstone that digs into some additional psychological benefits and for good measure, environmental advantages that riding a balance bike can provide for your toddler and community.

Balance Bike – wonderful developmental benefits are included!

Yes, you guessed it. Now we invite you to kick back and enjoy our final piece in the series that probes into the wonderful benefits that riding a balance bike can provide for little riding champions. First up, let’s talk brain health.

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Cognitive Development

You may very well be thinking, what exactly is cognitive development and more importantly, what does this have to do with my little gem riding a balance bike?

Well, we do promise to delve a little deeper into the psychological benefits of riding a balance bike, however it is our goal to bring you clear, research backed practical information that you can really digest, understand and essentially apply. So first up, let’s unpack the nuts and bolts of what cognitive development involves.

Cognitive development explained

Early childhood, or what is typically defined as birth to 5 years is marked by one of the most critical and intensive periods of brain development in the human lifespan.

Don’t be too concerned about the seriousness of that last statement. It’s super exciting to learn that physical activity, such as riding a balance bike, contributes beautifully towards helping your little gem’s brain development. But let’s uncover this just a little further so you more fully understand brain health for toddlers’.

Balance bike – physical and cognitive benefits wrapped up in a cute little toy!

This sensitive period is highlighted by what psychologists’ describe as cognitive development. It includes some crucial areas of brain function and learning such as sensory information, and higher-level processes including working memory, attention and planning. Healthy brain development facilitates optimal cognitive development during this key stage.

To take this one step further, optimal cognitive development requires emergence and growth in multiple domains. From a child psychologists’ perspective, these include what is referred to as the language, memory, spatial, and executive function domains.

The key is to understanding the factors that contribute to healthy brain development. This is where physical activity and riding a balance bike come into the game for some illuminating effects on toddler brain health.

Balance Bike – rich in developmental potential!

Physical Activity and Cognitive Development

If your toddler is getting their daily exercise, preferably from a variety of sources and spread throughout the day, then they are well on the way to learning and adopting some amazing, yet even today, highly underrated habits that can track into middle childhood, adolescence and more importantly adulthood.

Yes that’s right, we believe the positive long term benefits of getting daily physical activity such as riding a balance bike, are yet to be fully understood.

“when considering cognitive development, the most significant positive benefits for toddlers’ riding a balance bike can be seen when we reflect upon the habits that are being formed at such a precious age”

In fact, from our comprehensive research into the literature, we find that while physical activity is being increasingly recognised as an important determinant in cognitive development (and we could easily add here many additional psychological functions) in middle childhood and adulthood, the research, while affirming, is limited in the investigations of the benefits of physical activity and cognitive development in toddlers’.

To put this into practical terms, there is growing evidence that riding a balance bike not only ticks the box of your toddler getting some super fun physical activity, but the activity itself also fosters efficient executive functioning that includes motivation, the ability to set goals and self-control. All key aspects of a young toddlers’ cognitive development.

Balance Bike – so much more than just a fun toy!

From what we can glean from the literature, when considering cognitive development, the most significant positive benefits for toddlers’ riding a balance bike can be seen when we reflect upon the habits that are being formed at such a precious age.

As parents, and yes I hope you don’t mind me putting on my parenting helmet here, our goal is to introduce and encourage our little gem’s toward fun, rewarding, and life-long healthy habits that sow the seeds for positive well-being and engagement.

This includes a balance that promotes and stimulates every aspect of their holistic development. And yes, our subjective bias will again come to the surface, but we do promote the wonderful world of balance bikes for kids as a uniquely special means to provide such growth.

Now, let’s change direction for a moment and take a green look at a topic that has risen to the top of the agenda not only in the political sphere, but is considered a hot topic at every level of the community. That is, our environmental impact.

Yes, we are going to finish our article with some insights of the benefits that riding a balance bike contributes to helping our environment.

The Environmental Advantage

Before we begin, we need to make note that this topic is, well huge! In this article we can only hope to scratch the surface of some advantages that riding a balance bike can promote to helping our environment.

We will focus on just two, super important benefits including, reducing our carbon footprint and active transport.

Carbon footprints

Have you ever ridden a bike past patiently waiting traffic just pilled up in your community? Perhaps you may have even wondered just how much carbon emissions you have saved on your recreational ride or commute to work.

“riding a bike still has one of the lowest carbon emissions per kilometer of any form of transport!”

Well, we have looked into the green advantage of cycling in depth and have found some ripping results that shouts loud and clear that riding a bike is super healthy for our environment. But just how healthy you may ask?

To get right to the point, while cycling carries a carbon cost due to the manufacturing and of course the human fuel required to power our peddles, riding a bike still has one of the lowest carbon emissions per kilometer of any form of transport. Yes that’s right, and according to well documented research, it even beats walking!

For good measure, here are just a couple of numbers worth digesting to help drive home just how good riding a bike is for our environment.

• riding a bike contributes approximately 21g of carbon emissions per kilometer. That is less than walking or catching a train and less than one tenth the emissions compared to using a car
• electric bikes have an even lower carbon footprint
• if riding a bike’s popularity increased and each bike trip replaced car travel, the reductions in carbon emissions worldwide would be astoundingly beneficial in lowering our carbon footprint

So, where does riding a balance bike fit into this equation?

We mentioned earlier that one of the most significant benefits for riding a balance bike relates to the healthy habits being formed at such a critical time in a toddlers’ development.

Balance Bike – our environmental ambassador! 

Well, this not only contributes to introducing wonderful health and well-being habits, but also creates a mindset that understands and considers that our behaviors impact upon our surroundings in profound ways. None more so than our choice of moving around and the effects this may have on our environmental conditions.

By introducing your little champion to a balance bike, you are taking the first step in their learning and appreciation that our behaviors, and we are namely talking about our means of transport here, directly impacts upon our beautiful environment.

We can choose greener options. Once again, the balance bike seems to tick all the right boxes!

This provides a nice segue into our final environmental consideration, active transport.

Active transport

Every time we take the car, and yes this includes even those short trips to the shops, we are impacting in harmful ways upon our biodiversity. That is, essentially each car trip impacts upon the variety of all life forms on the planet. This includes everything from air pollution, carbon emissions, warming of the atmosphere to simply making more noise.

“active transport promotes individual and community health and well-being”

Active transport is basically the mix of walking or cycling but generally includes public transport as well. Let’s get right to the point here as to why active transport is a winner.

Active transport promotes individual and community health and well-being, and therefore, directly impacts our toddlers’ health and prosperity too.

Balance bike – the perfect toy to promote active transport!

Riding a balance bike has an abundance of physical, psychological, social, and emotional benefits. We can confidently add to that list the wonderful environmental contribution that riding a balance bike adds to reducing our carbon footprint and to promoting active transport for our communities.

It’s fair to say that our little balance bike is a powerhouse in its overall benefits to human and environmental health and well-being!

Conclusion

We hope that by reading this final article in our three-part series on the benefits of balance bikes for toddlers’ that you have gained an insightful appreciation for just how cool balance bikes really are in contributing in some very special and profound ways in promoting lifetime health for kids.

To re-cap, we have found some preliminary evidence for the positive benefits that physical activity, including riding a balance bike can contribute to our precious little rider’s cognitive development in early childhood.

Balance Bike – developmental powerhouse!

In addition, we have certainly dug up extensive evidence for the wonderful and we believe, inspiring contributions that riding a bike has towards reducing our carbon emissions and the promotion of active transport.

Let’s not forget, these are directly related to every facet of our lives. Not one area is omitted from being impacted directly from how we choose to live, and that includes our choices of moving around.

As we have mentioned throughout this series, balance bikes are our champions because they are forming positive habits at such a critical age in a child’s development. That’s what makes riding a balance bike super special!

Please reach-out to us if you have any questions from our latest series of articles, or anything related to balance bikes. We genuinely love to hear from you and want for you to fully enjoy the wonderful world of balance bikes!