To Get Rid of Training Wheels

In an effort to boost my Google search-ability (why? I don't know) I have decided to post on my theory on how to teach a child how to deal with the (sometimes traumatic) moment when you remove their training wheels when learning how to ride a bike. I was amazed at how fast kids learn to ride without training wheels once they are taught this technique. It all started when we were trying to get Winter and Sterling to give up their spare wheels...they weren't too excited about that. You see, with training wheels, they could ride - without them, they knew they couldn't. So, without knowing how great bike riding is once you get them off, they simply wanted to continue to ride with them on. This made it very important that the trials without training wheels went smoothly.
Unfortunately, riding with training wheels creates bad habits in the kids. For example, they get the bad habit of just using the handlebars to steer (as opposed to using them to keep the bike balanced as they should) so they would just hold the handlebars straight as they would start to fall over instead of turning into the fall and riding out of it. Over and over again, they would simply fall over and ride the bike all the way to the ground holding the handlebars straight. They were losing patience with the new riding (without training wheels) and kept wanting me to put the training wheels back on.
Things weren't going well until I finally just told them to just start sawing away with the handlebars as they rode turning the bars left, then right, then left, then right in a rapid sawing motion. It was amazing! Instantly, they could ride the bike without falling over (albeit in a bit of a wavy line.) Here's how I later decided it works:
Even theough they were sawing the handlebars back and forth, they did have some element of balance in their little heads. Because the sawing motion broke them of their training-wheel-learned-habit of hold the bars still, and because the average or net result of the sawing motion was influenced by their innate sense of balance, the counterintuitive motion of jerking the handlebars back and forth randomly actually allowed them to ride the bike unassisted. Once they got to where they could stay up on the bike, it didn't take long at all for them each to be starting, stopping, turning, and riding in straight lines. It really was amazing how that little trick helped them to learn to ride without the training wheels in what was basically a period of just a few moments.
This method worked for both Winter and Sterling, and I have even taught it to a few other kids who also learned almost immediately. So if you have kids who are stuck on training wheels, this may be your (and their) ticket to freedom.
By the way, this is somewhat obvious, but this method will not work for kids who have not been riding with training wheels. This is not a method for learning how to ride a bike; it is a method for learning how to break out of the training wheel cycle once the kid is already very good at riding with training wheels.