How to Teach a Kid to Snow Ski

There are a few ways to teach your kids to ski. We have three daughters and each is in the process of learning in slightly different ways.

Our oldest two kids were four and six at the time we started them in group ski lessons at Squaw Valley in Lake Tahoe. For our oldest daughter this worked great, but for our youngest, she was unhappy in the lessons and after short while, the instructor called and asked us to pick her up. Group ski lessons are pretty expensive at Squaw, so I wouldn't recommend putting a child in them that doesn't want to go. For our oldest daughter, the group lessons worked great. She would ride the magic carpet up the bunny slope and snow plow down doing big turns by the end of her first day of lessons. After two more days of lessons, she progressed super quickly and was able to ski down blue runs and get on and off the ski lift by herself. Our four year old didn't get back on skis after her first lesson that season. In summary, group lessons are a great way to learn to ski for a kid that wants to learn. The instructors are well versed in how to teach kids and the facilities are designed to make it easy to learn.

After our failure with teaching our middle child to ski in group lessons, we put her back in a year later. This time she complied and in one day learned the very basics, however she expressed little interest in getting more lessons. We figured skiing isn't for everybody.

Our two year old has been talking about skiing and told us she wanted to learn. We looked into lessons for her, but kids have to be at least three and potty trained at Squaw. She's mostly potty trained, but she is a little shy of three years old, so if we wanted to teach her to ski, we would have to do it ourselves.

I'm an intermediate skier. Competent, but not great, so I wasn't sure I could teach her the basics of a pizza wedge and toothpicks. While we were getting the kids their ski rentals, I decided to purchase a harness with reigns to attach to her so I could at least slow her down on the mountain. We rode up the mountain to a green level run. We snapped our two year old in skis and put the harness on her. Then I put on my skis with my new custom ski boots and we hit the slopes. Scary, right? She wasn't quite ready to stand up and go even slowly, so I pulled her between my legs and began to ski with her down the slope. This worked really well because her skis were so short that they didn't interfere with mine. Soon, she was getting the hang of it, and after about four runs, I started to let out the reigns and have her ski for brief periods on her own. Now, she's only two and after skiing for four hours, she was completely shot. I made the mistake of picking her up and skiing down the mountain to the bottom with her in my arms. Carrying a kid on skis takes a ton of strength for any significant distance. At the bottom of the hill, I was completely drained and we had to sit down and drink a ton of water.

After my experience with the harness, I decided to ask our five year old, Julia, if she wanted to go skiing with me. To my surprise she did. We took her to Donner Pass, put the harness on her, jumped on the ski lift and away we went. The first run, I tried to put her between my legs, accept this didn't work as well because her skis were longer than Lila's and they got caught up in my skis and we fell. So, as soon as we got up, I let out the leash on the harness and had her ski a few feet in front of me. After a few runs, she was getting very comfortable, snow plowing down the mountain. I quickly realized that there is a downside to the harness. The harness slows them down and gives them confidence, so they don't worry about turning. I tried to get her to turn by following her sister, but she was still going pretty much straight. I figured the only way she would learn to ski on her own is if we got rid of the harness and the leash. She was a bit scared, but said she wanted to give it a try without the harness. We took off the harness and agreed that she would follow me. My plan was to do very large turns and make sure we didn't go very fast. On the more gradual portion of the slope, this worked great. She was getting the feel for doing large turns. But, when we hit the steeper part, where it's more important to turn, she got going straight and crashed because of too much speed. We tried to stay on more bunny hills for the rest of the day, and she was progressing rapidly. After one day of lessons, a morning on the harness, and an afternoon on the bunny slope, she could snow plow, get on and off the ski lift chair, and do big turns. She had the basics down. In summary, I think the harness works great for very small children, but you can't stay with it too long or it will be a big crutch for the child. If you do use a harness, only kids with very short skis will be able to fit between your skis, so they'll have to be able to at least stand on skis on their own to be effective. When you ski behind them, pay very close attention to what they are doing and make sure to keep yours and their speeds down.

Kids have an amazing ability to learn. A five year old can learn the basics of skiing in one day and a two almost three year old, can do a little assisted skiing in one day as well. If kids learn to ski young, I think they'll have an opportunity to enjoy skiing for a lifetime. If they don't want to ski, there are other activities to do in Lake Tahoe with kids.