We have had an incredible winter in Virginia this year, with unreal amounts of snow. I believe the kids are on their eighth snow day home from school. We have done all kinds of snow activities trying to keep everyone busy. We have built snow caves, made snow cones (which were a little gross), sledded and knocked down monster icicles with snowballs. The kids also made up a funny game called “Snow Mole”, were they dug tunnels all through the yard. They then played a game like hide and seek, only you crawled through the tunnels and got pounced on from above by whoever was “it”.
Sledding on a nearby driving range, both kids tried out a friend’s snowboard and really wanted to learn. I think it’s important that the kid really wants to learn, because it’s hard. Last Monday, I realized we could pay the midweek price at our nearby resort Wintergreen and get a lesson, lift ticket and rentals for one price and then you get two more days of lessons, lift tickets and rentals for a reduced amount. At my resort, a helmet was not included in the rental and was another ten dollars. I would get the helmet, you can also buy a nice new helmet for as cheap as $30. It was a beautiful day out, I felt like I was back skiing on the West Coast. You didn’t need gloves or a jacket. The kids took the lesson and then my youngest stayed and I helped her for an hour and she was off with her friends. It was helpful for both of my kids to be with a friend who had also never done it before. My older child took off immediately with his friends, which turned out to be a bad idea. He came back very frustrated. But, after an hour with his mom, he was off. I think he was as shocked as I was that I could teach him.
The best piece of advice I can give is to try to make sure the weather is nice the first time you bring your kids out. Strong wind and freezing temperatures could make for a very bad first experience. I had watched this short video on teaching kids to snowboard, it turned out to be very helpful. It was also nice for me to be on skis and my husband to just have on boots when we first started. Explain ahead of time, yes, they will spend a lot of time falling and getting back up. No one started out as Shaun White, not even Shaun. The first thing I tried to make sure of was that they were looking ahead at where they were going, for some reason kids feel like they need to look down and watch their feet. If they do that, they just fall. I also explained that you do just have to let yourself go, as soon as you start to lose control, slow down and if you can’t do that, sit down. Ask them to try to go down the slope in wide zigzags, as perpendicular to the slope as possible. I would stay behind them the whole time, that way if they fell I could catch up to them. There’s nothing worse than trying to climb back up hill to help someone who has fallen. Last, but not least, before they start back off after falling, they need to look uphill and see who is coming. The only part that made me nervous the whole time, was that some huge person was going to ski into them.
I know there is a lot more to this. As we go more and more, I will let you know how we progress. It doesn’t look like the weather is letting up anytime soon.
My pictures are pretty fuzzy as they were taken with my phone.
