Dustin.NS,
This thread has been a long time coming, and it's an understatement to say I'm excited for it. My son is turning 3 in February, but he's strong and speaking well enough that I am ready to get his feet on snow next week when we finally move back to the mountains after a 3 year stint in the desert (not a total loss, he's a hell of a swimmer now at the age of 2!). I know many of my OG NS friends have kids of their own or have taught youngin's at the local (probably Vail owned now...) hill.
What's the best way to get him going at such a young age? We will be living in North Ogden, Utah and frequenting Snowbasin, so he'll get lots of reps each week and have easy access to a magic carpet and a small lift-accessed beginner section. I obviously want to do it like we did with swimming: lots of exposure, but lots of fun. I think we want a harness for him with a handle on it to help pick him up or grab on to if he gets moving too fast, but we've never done this before.
What have you guys got for me? How do I win at this?
I've got three kids on skis now, I'll give you the best points I have.
1) Each kid will have their own timeline. Just because you were ripping at 3 doesn't mean they will. It is totally normal for a kid to take until 4 or 5 before they're competently on their own.
2) Make it fun above all else. If you go out to the hill and they're cold after one run? Fuck it, pack it in and let them watch their favorite show on your phone on the way home for the effort. Personally, I let all kind of bad behaviour slide under the branding "mountain rules". I also have driven out to the hill only to do 1/2 of a run, carry them back to the car and drive home... four weeks in a row.
3) Ski lessons. The amount of progress that gets made, even if you're just doing an hour of private lessons once a week is amazing. By my 3rd I didn't even try to teach myself, and he was skiing on his own insanely quickly. Instructors know what they are doing.
4) The harness is magic. I tried old-school with my first two doing poles across and a snowplow with them in between my legs. Terrible. That harness where you can clip onto them with the webbing that you can hold from behind? Amazing. IMy two older kids can ski on their own, so we can all go as a family and my youngest (4 now, was 3 last season) could actually ski around with us like he was part of the crew. It even allowed us to go up to steeper and larger runs, because I can help control his speed and he gets to feel like he's doing it on his own.
Good luck man! It does take time, and man are some of those days hard as they are learning. However, when you're ripping around the mountain with your 9-year old kid and they're actually starting to shred... or just out for a bunch of laps as a family... there is no experience more satisfying in this sport.
