Is 3 too young to ski?

A snowHead

Am heading off to Chatel at the end of Feb and 3 year old granddaughter is coming. Is she too young for lessons and can anyone recommend a ski school in Chatel where they speak English. Was thinking of buying a ski trainer harness (looks a bit like long reins) for pottering around the greens - any tips when using? Puzzled

A snowHead

3 isn't too young, no. Whether you'll find a school in any given 'resort X' that will take her that age is another matter. We started bimbling ours around at 2, sent him to his first ski school at 2.5 (Les Marmottons in Tignes). In fact we picked Tignes specifically because there was a school that would take them at 2.5. As it was, he was something like 9 days younger than 2.5 so we had to ask them specially, but they agreed to take him.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

As for the reins thing, we made a makeshift one of our own using some suitcase straps... it was *quite* useful I suppose but ultimately I preferred simply holding him between my legs in a snowplough (back breaking work though it is), or letting him hang on to a pole (the risk of which I understand, and am not willing to enter a boring debate about).

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Jacski50, I think most French ski schools take children from 3. My youngest was was three when we put her into the Spritelets with Esprit the lessons were from ESF. To be honest though she didnt get on that well, she kept getting tired, hot and fed up and just sitting/ lying down. We were surprised as physically she was as big if not bigger than most 4yr olds.

When my eldest was in spritelets there was a lad who was 3 who got on really well, better than my daughter (who did well in my book any way).

Try it and see keep it fun.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Jacski50, all depends on lots of factors:

1. the child- can they be left- are they continent, will they do what a stranger says, are they interested?
2. the parents- can you leave them, crying, in the cold, especially if one parent isn't keen on skiing anyway?
3. the ski school- some have 4 as a minimum age for groups- some 3 . just a bout all will do 3 private
4. the weather- v cold not v good.

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Jacski50, welcome to snowheads.

From my experience (like NickyJ) some kids get on better than others. And no doubt some Piou Piou (or similar) classes are run better, with smilier helpers, than others. And the weather makes a difference. My 3 year old grand-daughter (actually still 2, but only by a few days) had a private lesson on a really gentle slope but, frankly, hadn't really begun to grasp the snowplough, though she enjoyed whizzing down "hands on knees" with her dad skiing backwards in front of her ready to field her at the bottom. She also adored going up the mountain with her and "skiing" down with her dad (and yes, it is back-breaking - he's well over 6 foot). She also took to toboganning like a duck to water - and digging in the snow and making "snow castles" with a bucket and spade. I don't think she'd much have enjoyed being packed off to a ski school every morning, really, especially as in our area the other kids would be mostly Francophone.

But to ski around with a littlie who can't ski, and is depending on you entirely, you have to be pretty strong and competent, I reckon - I'd be a bit worried and was glad my son in law took that role. He's a PE teacher so he also understands a lot about how to teach motor skills.

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Jacski50, welcome to Snowheads

Really lucky you have picked Chatel, get in touch with Helen Trayfoot at http://www.puresnowsports.co.uk/ she is English, is an expert at teaching tiny kids and has written a book on it! Mine was already older when we first started going to Chatel but friends' kids have skied with Helen and I have seen her out on the slopes with teeny tinies and she is brilliant with them. Generally there are only one or two littlies with her at a time and she also runs parent/grandparent and child classes to help you help your child to learn to ski. With Helen you have none of the usual worries (highlighted by previous posters) which go along with putting a very young one in ski school.

I also really recommend BASS Ski School in Chatel too but for a three year old Helen would be best if she's free.

After all it is free

Our eldest was 3 when we first took him skiing, he loved it and tootled along happily with his Dad. I struggled a bit more with him and would have loved a parent & child class, especially as I was 3 months pregnant. I doubt they existed 20 plus years ago when I needed them but I think they are a brilliant idea!

We did only take our 3 year old on the slopes for a morning or an afternoon and stopped as soon as he got tired, as his then 14 month old brother had little time for being on the snow and wailed whenever we put him down, the short sessions worked best for us but he would not have been ready for ski school at that age.

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I never found the snowplough aspect that much of a problem. The problem for me was riding t-bars with the bar somewhere around the top of my calves and having to bend over to hold it down at that level. Usually I was about ready for beers after two runs!

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sarah, Helen sounds brilliant - I'd like a "grandparent and child" class. But is her name really Trayfoot? Does she board too?

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pam w, yes really Very Happy

And no I don't think so, she telemarks I think Very Happy

She is a BASI trainer too and has a young daughter herself. She is really fab with little ones and not so little ones too.

You know it makes sense.

Jacski50, I don't know what the limits will be for lessons where you are, but mine started in Switzerland and, if the ski school thought they would cope with the sessions, the kids were taken from age 3 as mine were.

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

The best thing you can do on skis with a three year old is just have fun. If you can give them a great experience in the mountains that'll keep them wanting to do more, rather than trying to get them to ski properly after their first outing - particularly if you're only going for a week or so every season.

A snowHead

A snowHead

Jacski50, I think it depends entirely on the 3 year old. My DD didn't have the attention span for ski school until she was 4 (and probably wasn't strong enough either) but an instructor friend gave her a few 20 minutes sessions when she was 3 and she loved the sliding. However, she got bored quite quickly and preferred to run about in the snow in her ski boots instead. You have to be patient and take it at her pace. Like Richard_Sideways, says, the best thing is to let them have fun and if they enjoy it then they'll want to go back. DD is 10 and now skis at the same pace as us - although that was last season so she may be faster now! Happy

Have fun!

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Jacski50, Our two started at 2 and a half. They started in earnest at 3 and a half, and enjoyed it a lot, due to our care in selecting tuition. They are now very competent, committed and safe skiers - they do 8-10 weeks a year. But this might be both a bit of a shock and instructive....

Learning to ski rather than eat biscuits:
How to get the best ski tuition for your children.

Picture the scene: trees laden with snow, perfect piste conditions, and then the inevitable sight of twelve or thirteen young ones following a single instructor – a snaking line with the kids at the back flailing around trying to keep up, cutting the turns, crashing and burning and getting little in the way of genuine instruction. At Christmas I came across two instructors with over twenty tiny charges – all snowploughing anarchically down a narrow, tree-lined piste. Apart from the enormous queue of very patient skiers which began to build up behind them, when the inevitable fall came in the middle of the pack, it was carnage – a domino effect took out more than half the group. Should this be young ones’ first experience of skiing?

Over the last couple of decades, I’ve had some really excellent instruction and coaching – sometimes by accident and, more recently, by seeking out recommended instructors. What I didn’t anticipate was how difficult it would be to find good instruction for my very young children. This article is all about learning for the youngest children – from age 3-ish to age 10; a time when they learn fastest but also the time when their interest in skiing can easily be switched off completely rather than burn brightly.

I thought I was doing the right thing by booking my three year old daughter into an ‘official’ school – I’d had good private instruction through them and their local reputation was high. Come Christmas she had a first week of lessons and it all seemed to go well – almost 1:1 tuition, a good, caring instructor, and engaging activities in the kids’ park. So I felt relaxed about booking two weeks of morning group lessons at Easter. This would leave me with three clear hours on the hill, and I could then take an exhausted, skied-out but happy daughter back to our chalet for lunch and a long sleep, with toboganning and thermal baths as part of the afternoon schedule. So I was a bit surprised that she was full of beans when I arrived to pick her up; and not interested in food at all. A quick Q&A in the car on the way back to the chalet revealed that the lessons were ‘…Great!….We had loads of biscuits in the hut…’ and ‘…playing in the snow with the other girls was really good…’. Alarm bells started to sound. The next day I duly got her to the meet point, into ski boots and said goodbyes – but instead of getting on the mountain I retired to a restaurant with a view of the kids’ ski park. What I saw shocked me. Most of the time, the kids were either standing on skis waiting, or were engaged in non-skiing activities. Fine if all you are after is time for yourself, with your child in the care of others, but not fine if you and your kids are interested in skiing. I continued to watch. My daughter adjourned to the small hut in the kids park area and was in there, unsupervised, for around half an hour. The magnetism of biscuits, I guessed. But I’m good at suppressing irritation, so I continued to watch. At Christmas, there had been small groups, with experienced, older instructors doing good work with the kids. But now, later in the season, there were over twenty kids with two very young members of staff. It was clear that the instructors paid attention to those children who elected to ski or were wailing and in need of urgent care - but not to anyone else. Any child who was ‘not a bother’ could do pretty much what they wanted. In my daughter’s case, after the spell in the hut, this included lying in the snow a lot. After a while she was clearly asleep lying on the ground, and at that point I’d had enough. On the walk over I repeated ‘Don’t get cross…don’t get cross’ a hundred times. In the nicest possible way, I asked the two seventeen year-olds in instructors’ uniforms to encourage my daughter to participate. In the nicest way, they said that they couldn’t make her ski if she didn’t want to. Although this caused an internal fuse to blow inside my head, I remained calm and simply stayed there helping my young one to engage fully in the more ski-related activities. Despite plenty of calm discussion about why I had commissioned them to help my daughter with the basics, the next few mornings were wasted observing and intervening, and there was no sign that they would change the approach or agenda one jot. She continued to eat lots of biscuits and snow, in turn. And not do much skiing.

I began to question whether I was being reasonable in my expectations of the school. I had booked her into group lessons since I thought it more likely that she would respond to an instructor’s advice than mine – a positive first experience of skiing seemed vital. And surely they had more expertise in getting the basics right? But maybe collective lessons were always like this; after all, I had no experience of tuition for children. My partner was a little clearer: ‘…It’s completely unacceptable!…And a complete waste of our money!…And you’re not even getting time on the mountain…!!’. After a week I pulled my daughter from lessons and did the best I could, myself. Apart from the agony of having her on button lifts with me, it all went quite well. But it didn’t seem the optimum thing to do, either for her or me.

So prior to the next trip I did a bit of research – both on the internet and through skiing contacts. Up came the name Swiss Mountain Sports, based in Crans Montana. This is in the Valais region – about 2hrs from Geneva, top height around 3000m, with 150km of runs. Swiss Mountain Sports’ provision in winter ranged from heli-skiing to private lessons and Warren-Smith style ski academies but, crucially, they had a reputation for excellent work with kids, including the really wee ones. I phoned them to discuss their approach. My questions were based on what I wanted to avoid from previous experience, and this clearly made them think I was very odd. ‘No, we don’t feed them lots of biscuits’. ‘No, she will not be left to go to sleep in the snow’. ‘No, our instructors are over 17’. After we’d established that I wasn’t mad, they made clear their philosophy. Groups were never bigger than 5. All instructors were very experienced in encouraging young people both to enjoy skiing and to progress technically. I queried why the morning lessons were only two hours long. We could put her in all day, they said, but really, after two hours of focussed skiing in the morning, a really young child will be pretty exhausted, so SMS had by experience found that two hours was the right formula. ‘..And where will they go?..’ I asked. First to an area near a restaurant which had moving carpets, then onto a button, and then further around the mountain. This all seemed very promising. So I booked group lessons for a week, and felt more confident. But – having been let down so badly before – I didn’t feel confident enough to leave her there without discreetly looking at what was going on.

Crans Montana has four key access points; SMS has meeting points across the resort, with children of different ages ferried to the right location. Useful. At the meeting point the impressions were good – friendly, energetic and competent instructors who clearly loved skiing - and wanted to hand on their skills. Their enthusiasm for encouraging the tiny ones was strongly in evidence. Many had excellent English – not least because some of them were English – and those without extensive English had enough for engaging pre-ski banter with the kids and for instruction on the hill. They were great at handling separation anxiety amongst the tiny ones, and getting each child integrated into his or her group. My daughter was in a group of two. ‘…Er…where are the other children in her group?…’ I asked. ‘This is it’, came the reply. ‘Maximum of five and frequently the groups are smaller…’. And yet the rates were comparable to the school where she was in a group of over ten. This all seemed like a result. She grabbed the hand of the instructor and they were off to the bubble and up to the skiing area.

I followed, and watched from a discreet distance. She skied. Lots. She was helped to master the moving carpet, introduced to basics, picked up and dusted down after tumbles and collapses, had her gloves carefully put back on, taken for a quick toilet break, and encouraged both to have fun and develop technique. She did more skiing in the first hour than she had done in a week at the previous school. I breathed a deep sigh of relief. At the end of the lesson, she was indeed exhausted, so lunch was followed by a very long and deep sleep. And she loved all of it.

The next morning I had a chat with the owner and director of SMS, Yves Caillet – who seemed to be permanently on call and marshalling his troops like an experienced general. He was clear that small group size was essential, and a key to quality. He was also entirely pragmatic about my expectations – ‘You’ve put your trust in us and bought instruction from us…so we will teach your children to ski…that’s simple isn’t it?’. I liked the attitude. Yes, it should be simple, and ever since that first morning, SMS has delivered exactly what it promised. I now have two kids – 8 and 10 – who have acquired really good technique through SMS, love their morning lessons, and ski the pants off me in the afternoon, all over the hill. This Christmas, my eight-year old did steeps, powder and jumps with a level of style I can rarely muster. What’s more, they are safe on any type of lift and observe good piste etiquette. They are a joy to be with. Last season, we had friends with older children grappling with skiing for the first time – including a very self-conscious teenager – and they had the same rewarding experience of the SMS model of tuition.

I hope this gives an idea of reasonable expectations and potential pitfalls.

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I hope so... my LO is 3 at the end of next winter. My plan is to get her lessons the winter after!

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

valais2, Very nice post, I know you've written that before and very goodof you to take the time to write it again. Hope the OP comes back to read the thread.

As you know we have had similar experiences with ski schools, and I can recommend another Swiss school Arc en Ciel in Siviez which is run along the same lines as SMS with very small groups, committed teachers and quiet innovative methods. We've also now more recently had great experiences with BASS ski school in Chatel, again 2 hours, small groups, great instructors.

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sarah, the chatel note should be very useful to the OP.

Glad you had a good experience in Siviez on the other side of the valley to us....sounds excellent and I've made a mental note for friends....

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valais2, I hope so Smile

After all it is free

Jacski50, Maybe doing a few lessons in the UK before hand might be a good idea? As you are leaving after the Feb 1/2 term most of the pre-half-term rush will be done and the local slopes to you will be a little less busy so maybe a good chance for your granddaughter to have a slide around before you leave for the alps?

Thank you for all your comments and help. Have sent a couple of emails off and will wait to see what response I get. Think the advice to 'make it fun' will be the most useful for a 3 year old. Plenty of time for the more serious stuff!
Very Happy

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Many here have (sensibly) mentioned it is highly dependent on the child - not just attitude and mental maturity, but also physical maturity.
Some 3 year olds are still babies, some scarily grown up.
But also, I think, what other kids (siblings, friends) are doing is also important.
My daughter started at 4 yrs. She was a girly girl then (far from it now), and none of her friends were skiing.
She wasn't that keen to start with. (She's brilliant now snowHead

)
Her younger brother grew up going skiing every year, right from a few months old.
His sister and the older kids skied - he wanted to ski too.
It helped he was a good size and liked sports, but he was skiing at 3 yrs: determined to join in with the Big Kids.

snowHeads are a friendly bunch.

We put our smallest into lessons with lions at Castleford when he was 3 and they were brilliant at getting the basics sorted for him. I then put him into a ski school in Les Gets just after he turned 4 which was an unmitigated disaster as they had far too many kids in the group and an instructor who seemed to have no skills with kids and spent his time smoking fags or on his mobile (I followed them so I watched discreetly). The following year, same resort different instructors (different school) was a totally different experience, much lower ratios and instructors who engaged with the kids.

I think the moral is choose your ski school or instructor wisely!

snow reports

Both ours started at 3.
We put them in all-day lessons (with lunch included) for 4.5 days (Flaine).
They got to ski with us the afternoon of the last day.

Tough love?

Well they were happy and it seems to have worked, both are working ski instructors now, and both qualified as the youngest age that they could.

Yours,

Victorian Dad

aka rungsp

valais2, A great article.

I too have watched from a distance to ensure tuition is Ok. My just turned 5 year old daughter learnt to ski a few weeks ago. Small group with 2 tutors. Started on small slope with magic carpet, progressed to a small green/blue with button. On last day went on main chair lift to top and skied a nice long blue. Excellent tutors that engaged kids and encouraged them. We even had one of the tutors for an adults private lesson later in the day and found tuition excellent for adults also.

If anyone cares it was Evolution 2 in La Rosiere.

You know it makes sense.

Oldest daughter learned in La Tania a few weeks ago. She is 3 1/2yrs old. Think there were 7 3 or 4 yr old between 2 instructors in her class. She absolutely loved it, so much so that she came out for an hour with me in the late afternoon most days and even then said 'can I do more ski school?' a few times. By the end of the week she was skiing the green and blue down from the gondola on her own, without edgie-wedgie. Only 1 of those in her group wasn't quite at that level but they were all happy. We went and spyed on them once at the magic carpet and got some video of her, then we met them on the hill a few days later! The instructor was so good we got him doing some private lessons for the wife too.

There was a 4 yr old in our hotel in another ski school. He was skiing but I heard a few moans so I don't think he was enjoying it as much. Our son was very miffed that he wasn't skiing. Kept picking up poles and trying to get his feet into the bindings of skis lying outside pubs and restaurants! He will be 2 next week so planning on Easter 2015 for him. snowHead

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

This thread is a great read for those of us introducing the little people to the snow.

Our first daughter started on skis at 2.5 years old and I taught her myself, partly because the ski-school in Canada wouldn't take kids under 4 and partly because she was clingy and not used to being left alone with strangers. Even nursery was a bit too much for her at that time! But despite my total lack of instructing experience she took to it quite well and was confidently tackling the nursery slopes after a week or so. She could manage about an hour a day of actual skiing before getting too tired to stand up on the magic carpet. But she loved the snow, chocolate brownies in the village cafe and riding the gondola.

The following year, at 3 years old she continued to progress, still under my own instruction, and was physically much stronger than the previous year. By the end of our annual trip (1 month) she was confident cruising any green run and taking on the odd steeper blue. She was also riding the chairlifts without a problem. So I would say 3 is a good age to start providing you can guarantee close supervision and lots of attention. In hindsight and reading about some of the experiences in this thread, I think the DIY approach to instruction at this age is a good one, providing of course you are a competent skier yourself and prepared to do a little research into teaching toddlers how to ski. I personally found the following website very useful to that end http://www.kid-ski.com

This season our oldest will be 4 and our plan is to put her into ski school for the first time. With 2 months of snow time already under her belt, I'm sure she will be fine with the skiing providing the instructors can tame her! Our second daughter will be 18 months old and we feel it's a bit too young for her to start skiing, but she already loves playing in the snow Smile

Jacski50, regarding your question about the ski harness, see my link to kid-ski above. A harness can be useful, but most people use them incorrectly as a braking device. They should really be used to encourage turns and not for controlling speed. I bought a harness but actually found it unnecessary in practice. However the handle on the back is extremely useful to pick them up with one hand, in fact I'd say it's an essential piece of kit!

A snowHead

Both my kids learned at 3

A snowHead

Ours started on skis at 2 and is still loving it 3 years later

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

One of my grand daughters, just a few weeks short of her 3rd birthday

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Hard work for her Dad, at well over 6 foot tall...

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

and sometimes she just behaved like a 2 year old....

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The best thing about teaching littlies to ski is all the slapstick.

http://youtube.com/v/b2DqwQ2rQaM
Fig 1. Two years three months

http://youtube.com/v/3H8gXzZavoo
Fig 2: Two years four months

http://youtube.com/v/rJvdamlEgNU
Fig 3: Three years one month

http://youtube.com/v/VN7oFeZ2NCM
Fig 4: Three years four months

http://youtube.com/v/ENU2bhoc47E
Fig 5: Three years five months

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Mr Pieholeo, Laughing

Not a lot of the "hand the little ones over to the Esprit nannies" going on there..... great footage. Just love the rails!!

After all it is free

And the worst thing about teaching littlies to ski?

Preconception: Yay, I'm skiing in the Alps. I'll be ripping up the off piste from first to last lift!

Reality: Ah well, walking up and down this draglift is better than being at work!

Secretly: I wish I was at work.

I note pam w's grandchild and Mr Pieholeo's youngster were having one-to-one attention, possibly from a family member.
So, not taught by strangers, and not in ski school with a lot of other grizzly wailing unhappy kids.
I concur.
We naively put 4 yr old Rosie in to ESF in Courchevel. She stuck it for 3 days. It put her off ski school for life.
Fortunately her ski career was rescued by a couple of Private lessons.
Tom was taught by his Mum. (I would never have had the patience or attitude).
I have come to regard Ski School as glorified Child Care, to be avoided at all costs.
Fun when you're older, but not for young kids.

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The first time Pie Jr. was in ski school (2 years 6 months) he wailed and grizzled so much they temporarily shut him in a little shed to keep him from bothering the others.

ESF in La Tania was great for him though, even if he was quite naughty and kept buggering off on his own. It's all about the kid. I think exposure to it all with friends and family is worth double what a ski school will give in terms of becoming comfortable with it all. However, conversely the separation that ski school affords is immensely valuable too.

Help!!

Is 3 too young to ski?

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