Whether you ride bikes with your children as a family activity, or they ride together without you, it is great fun and exercise. I remember riding all over the neighborhood with my siblings when I was growing up. Now, my children enjoy doing the same thing. We live out in the country so the nearest store or gas station is about five miles away. Once the children reach the age of 10, I will let them ride their bikes that far if they wear their helmets and take along a sibling.

It seems to be a great bonding experience for them and a way for them to get to know their neighborhood and meet their neighbors. They usually return home with their loot, recanting tales of being chased by a dog, hitting an opossum, or seeing a friend.

Reuters Health had an article on October 16, 2007, which caught my eye about bicycle safety, since it is my children’s main form of transportation. The article said that more than 10,000 children and teens in the United States are hospitalized every year, for an average of three days, after falling off or crashing their bicycles. The hospital fees for those injury visits rack up to about $200 million. Most of those children were not wearing bicycle helmets and one-third of the hospitalized children had traumatic brain injuries. Helmets can reduce the risk of brain injury by up to 85 percent.

"Bicycles are associated with more childhood injuries than any other consumer product except the automobile," Dr. Gary Smith, director of the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Ohio State University, said in a statement.

An additional 500,000 bike-related injuries are treated in emergency rooms each year in the United States. The costs of those visits are not included in the $200 million estimate.

While bicycling can be a great way to bond with your new sibling group be sure to keep every safe. Insist that your newly adopted children wear safety equipment. While they may argue, it does show them that you love and care about their protection.

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