Featured Ski Tips

The 5 Most Useful Tips for Teaching Kids to Ski

By Maggy Mulhern

Surprise: These tips for teaching kids to ski have almost nothing to do with skiing and everything to do with your sanity.

I showed up to coach with the Sugar Bowl Ski Team in Lake Tahoe as an 18-year-old already washed-up ski racer from Vermont who grew up on Cabot cheddar and blue ice. I was ready to talk Olympic dreams and sweet angles.

Then, I met my five- and six-year-olds. Things changed fast. Instead of worrying about which drills to do, I ended up trying to figure out how to discreetly tell the staff at the bottom that a kid had an accident—the type that requires new long underwear rather than a ski patroller.

tips for teaching kids to ski
Success on the slopes is about more than pizzas and french fries.

The solution was the term “Code Yellow,” and my legacy with the team became a new record for the most Code Yellows in a season (nine, lucky me). Between Code Yellows 1 and 9, I learned that to keep the kids moving and myself sane, only half of what I could teach involved the actual mechanics of skiing.

Coaches, parents, aunts, uncles, instructors—listen up. These tips will help you hang tight as you turn kiddos into skiers.

1) Independent Nose Management

One girl, call her Rachel, had a habit of letting snot trickle out of her nose, pool on her upper lip, and run into her mouth. Rachel (or, more likely, her parents) must not have loved the trend. Days later, she whipped out a pocket packet of Kleenex. I reveled at this six-year-old’s preparation. Then she handed me her used tissue.

Proximity exposure to kid germs was OK. Saving the germs in my jacket pocket? Not so much.

The priority of the day suddenly switched from French fry turns to independent mucous management. Rachel learned The Snot Rocket. We identified the optimal blowing moment: when the nostril is full but not overflowing. Then into tactics: cover one nostril, lean away from your pants and skis, aim away from others. Fire away.   

2) Helmets=storage

Snack time can be an optimal moment for kids and adults to re-center. But you lose the chance to rest when you end up on your hands and knees looking for tiny mittens.  

Keep snack time stress-free. Enter the lodge. Take off gloves. Take off helmet. Put gloves in helmet. Take off neckie. Neckie in helmet. Clip helmet. Hang helmet on a hook with your jacket. All things in one place.

Now kick back and savor that brisket.

3) Conquer the double blacks: put your skis on

Taking my group down their first double black was one of the most gratifying experiences I had while coaching. Less triumphant was the moment one of them yard-saled, leaving me to hike up to help him get back into his skis. After he was recovered, I turned around just in time to see half my group wandering off in boredom.

We reassembled—then learned a critical skill for conquering tough terrain: putting yourself together after a fall.  

Find a flattish backside of a mogul. Make sure your feet are steady. Position the uphill ski first. Dig the edge in to keep it still. Flip yourself around and do it again.

tips for teaching kids to ski
The quicker your kiddos feel independent, the quicker they’ll develop a love of the sport.

4) Don’t look like a floundering east coaster

As an east coaster, I came to California with unique skills: walking across a parking lot of ice in boots; dressing myself for a -20°F day; sharpening my skis enough for bulletproof ice. Getting myself out of deep snow, however, wasn’t one of these skills.

Early on, I fell in front of the other coaches and had to teach myself quickly or be labeled a hopeless east coaster. Naturally, the next move was to teach my 6-year-olds what took me 18 years to learn.

With poles:

Have them make an X with their poles and hold them where they cross. Use it as a platform to push against while they right themselves.

Without poles:

This requires some worm-wiggling. Have them finagle their butts over the back of their skis in a crouch then stand from squatting.

5) Carrying your skis: Not just an aesthetic thing

Sure, six-year-olds can get away with carrying their skis like firewood without being featured on @jerryoftheday, but that’s not the point. Tiny arms (and big arms, honestly) get tired from the firewood carry. Once they do, kids will inevitably start begging to have their skis carried. Save yourself from the begging and give them a sense of independence by teaching them how to carry their skis over their shoulder.

The only trick to this is that the ski with the brake on top should rest on your shoulder so the skis don’t slide apart leaving the kid frustrated and ready to bail.

All that to say…

At the start of the season, I had two goals: 

1.) Help my kids fall in love with skiing.

2.) Not explode with frustration.

Little did I know that by staying afloat with the second one, I would accomplish the first.

As I taught them how to exist on their own, the days grew easier: fewer meltdowns, more exploring. Watching them, I started to remember why I had fallen for skiing originally. It wasn’t just the act of skiing, but the independence that I felt on the mountain. I watched my kids try, fall, get up, then try again, knowing that they were finding that independence too.

What started as a mission to minimize frustration ended up being the foundation for their love affairs with skiing, their sense of confidence, and a ski life free of Code Yellows.  

Teaching older skiers? We’ve got tips for that too.

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