Skiing with children – our tips for getting the most of your time on the slopes
Skiing with children is fun, challenging and humbling all in equal measure. Fun because you find a light-hearted sense of enjoyment you’d forgot you had. Challenging because there will be a time when your child refuses to get up or says he’s not enjoying it and wants to go home. Humbling because you’ll your child’s ‘have-a-go’, no-fear approach will turn him from a struggling beginner to a confident skier in no time.
For the keen skier, skiing with children can present a dilemma. How do you reconcile wanting to ski at your pace with encouraging your child to carefully negotiate the beginner’s slope? Well, here are our top tips for a happy compromise so that all members of the family make the most of their ski vacations.
Its what you make of it
- Keep smiling - if you’re smiling then it’s so much easier to be patient. There will be times when your patience will be tested to the limit. In our family these are almost always related to the perceived injustices involved with sibling rivalry!
- Accept that the skiing you’ll do when you’re skiing with children will not be the same as when you’re without them. It will be at a different pace – unless you’re all learning together. We really enjoy family ski holidays because we can see the progress made, and the fun had along the way.
Get organised
- Book your child a course of lessons – usually these are two hours each day for six days.
- Be ready yourself to ski as soon as you’ve taken your child to his lesson. Yes, you’d like a soothing hot chocolate to reward yourself for getting everyone up and out on time. But you’re here to ski, so pit stops can wait. We take our children into their lesson, clip on our skis and go. It means we can go at our pace for a couple of hours before going at a different pace when the whole family is together.
- If you have tiny tots but no childcare, share looking after them whilst taking it in turns to ski. Be ready and waiting to go as soon as the other comes back. In the early days we’d ski half a day each, alternating each day between the morning and afternoon.
When on the slopes
When you’re skiing together, split into two groups to stop older children getting frustrated with younger beginners. Have a fast group and a slow group (or a fast group and a faster group – depending on sibling rivalry in your family). Arrange to do the same run, the only difference is that the faster group will probably ski it twice in the time the beginners have done it once. Its always fun to spot the rest of the family or even catch up with them.
Have a small supply of sweets tucked into a spare pocket. From a quick sugar fix to a small reward for tackling something new, these have saved the day so many times. Remember not to eat them when actually skiing.Beginners love the freedom to choose which run to do next (within their ability, of course!). Even if it is the gentle green (again), go with it – it means your child is completely engaged in what he’s doing. The confident five-year-old giving instructions on the way to go next truly is a delight.
What about skiing with children who’ve just started learning?
There will be far more towing, lifting and physical activity than you thought possible. And having to snowplough is hard work! If you’re a competent skier and reasonably fit then you’ll have no difficulty taking out a small child. Take a look at our
how to ski
page for tips on skiing with children who are very young.
Skiing with children on your family ski vacation is enormously rewarding. Make sure you make the most of your own skiing time when they were taking their lesson, and you'll be only too pleased of a more leisurely pace when the whole family is out on the slopes.
Return from skiing with children to learn to ski.
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