We talked to a whole bunch of people, ski instructors and just good skiers in general about starting a kid on skis. The advice ranged the gamut of not using contraptions and beginning as soon as they can walk to not even bother trying skis on your kids until they are in Kindergarten. So we did what most parents would do and that is throw all advice out the window and do what we had in mind from the beginning anyway to teach Aeneas the basics of skiing.
Day 1: With the harness on pretty much just meant that our kid skied between our legs but it provided a nice handle to pull him out of snow banks with.
Day 2: Let him out gradually on the "leash", allowing him to depend on the ropes for speed control since we couldn't get past the idea of edges. But also realizing too far ahead means that you run over your kid when he falls, smashing his face that much further into the snow and ensuring that icy cold snow gets into his gloves and down the back of his coat.
Day 3: Begins to get the idea of edges and the pizza stance but not after lots of frustration with learning right and left (on both the kid's part and his parents' part!)
Day 4: Dad gets tired of pulling kid up off the slope, says he's done and he's just gonna ski so you better keep up. Kid gets up on his own and skis the whole way down with no one touching him! And knows his left from right before entering kindergarten to boot!
SUCCESS!
A big fat smile from a good sport.
And a really proud big brother!
odd title for this post ok i'm rolling with it...
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