353: Challenges with reading, ADHD meds, kids trying their best, and more: Ask the child development expert

Jen: My daughter, age 8 already, wants to ride a bicycle again. She had a typical bike fall a year ago (a scrape on the knee, just a run of the mill slow-speed fall that comes from learning how to balance) and has been avoiding the bike ever since. Typical for her high anxiety. She tells me she's afraid of falling again and she wants to ride on the school running track, which we did one time when she was 5, before we knew it wasn't allowed. She is also concerned that the training wheels send an unpleasant rumble into her body when she rides on asphalt. Uneven pavement or rocks or sticks make her afraid of falling. My concerns are the school rule, and driving 15 minutes or less. Our rural home has no paved areas at all, and so any riding involves packing up the car and driving to a safe place. But every time we talk about biking, and try to work out where we might go, she gets frustrated that nothing meets her criteria. We simply can't use the running track. She understands that intellectually, and she isn't asking me to break the rule. She's hoping, I guess, that I have some amazing cushiony place where she can fall without risk of hurting herself. Since I don't, she gets frustrated and cries that she'll never be able to ride a bike. She wants to get good enough to remove the training wheels, because she sees her 6yo sister without training wheels having a ball, and she doesn't want the unpleasant rumble that comes with leaning onto the training wheels. I'm at a loss here. How can I support her desire to practice, when the practice itself is too scary for her?