Katy hasn’t practiced her skateboard training in awhile.

During the last practice session, she was standing on the skateboard and easily tolerating lots of movement under her feet. Mostly, though, it was moving because of her weight shifts rather than moving because she was actually pushing it. I would like her to push it - moving with her front feet on the skateboard and her back feet on the ground.

Goal for todays first session: Orient the skateboard so that Katy’s body is closer to parallel with the board. Click for solid front feet on the board and a good position (between 12 and 3 o’clock). Any movement of the board is good as well.

Session 1 :: OK. So Katy isn’t clear on where her feet should be on the skateboard. Totally my fault - I never taught her that there was a preferred placement of her feet. The problem is that she tends to walk towards me on the board and ends up on the front, upturned end. And then she pops a wheelie on the board. Which is cute and she doesn’t mind it. But it conflicts with what I want the finished behavior to be.

Next session, she will be clicked for the placement of her front feet. Both feet, anywhere on the flat part of the board. I’ll stabilize the board a little bit so we can focus on the foot placement.

Session 2 :: Much better. I put the skateboard on the pink velour blanket so it didn’t move around too much. I’ll repeat this session a couple of times. After maybe one or two more sessions, I’ll change the criteria to putting her feet anywhere on the flat part except for the one inch before the upturned ends.

Session 3 :: Perfect. She’s getting and is successful at least 80% of the time. Next session, raise the criteria for feet being closer to the center of the board.