Teaching Kids to Ski: 6 Rules

For the past three winters, my wife and I have been teaching my two boys, ages 5 and 7, how to downhill ski. We are avid skiers and want to pass on the joy of snow skiing to our boys. Over the last three ski seasons, we've learned quite a bit about keeping our boys happy while they learn to ski.

By following these simple rules, your kids should progress quickly and learn to love skiing.

1. Ski when the weather's nice. The first season, skiing should be done when the weather is decent. You don't want to subject your kids to extremely cold or wet conditions. The first few mountain experiences should be fun. If they're cold or wet they'll associate skiing with being miserable and they won't want to go again. This may mean you don't take your kids skiing until spring conditions arrive later in the season.

2. Don't force your kids to ski. If they don't want to hit the slopes, let them horse around in the snow first. Build a snowman or have a snowball fight. The first season we were constantly negotiating with our boys telling them we'll spend a half hour building a snowman then we'll spend an hour skiing. By the second season they weren't interested in snowmen anymore, they wanted to ski.

3. Hot chocolate breaks work like magic. We stop for hot chocolate breaks at least once each ski day. The kids associate this treat with skiing and it gets them even more excited to hit the slopes knowing they'll end up with a steaming cup of hot chocolate.

4. Play games while your skiing. Play follow the leader or make airplane noises. Have your kids try to spray you with snow when they stop. If you make skiing about having fun and not about learning to ski they'll progress much quicker.

4. Avoid putting your kids into ski school. I know this sounds counterintuitive, but I have found most ski schools don't teach much skiing to new skiers. Obviously if you don't know how to ski yourself you'll have to put the kids in ski school, but you'll spend a lot of money and may not get much return.

Ski schools, can be good for kids that have a couple seasons under their belt because they'll be skiing with other kids, but for new skiers, I wouldn't recommend it. Let me explain: