Should our child learn skiing or snowboarding first, and when?
I can’t really picture a very young kid snowboarding, but then I’m a grump who doesn’t like snowboarders and wishes they wouldn’t carve up the hill and make it all icy. Regardless, I think the key is that the child should be a fully confident walker, with good co-ordination and muscle control. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a child younger than 3 on skis. I’ve always heard snowboarding was tricky to pick up; I’d think little skis would be a lot easier to learn first for a young child. The balancing seems like it would be much easier, but I’ve never boarded, so ymmv. And u.n. owen has a good point, although the inverse could also be true. I learned to ski at 7 and even though I don’t ski much now (not many opportunities or cash) I’m still comfortable doing it because I learned when I was young and crazy and fearless. If I didn’t know how to ski already, at this point in my life there’d be no way you could get me on that hill – my confidence to do dangerous things has totally plummeted (ye
I took up snowboarding after trying to learn to ski for a while. I’d fall, and skis would pop off (or worse, my legs would be turned in different directions) and poles would go flying, and it took me several minutes hopping around just to get everything together and go again. Meanwhile snowboarders would sail by, fall, and virtually bounce back up again. I finally switched, and never went back to skis. Maybe toddlers would appreciate the simplicity of a board as well. (For non-boarders: Since the snowboard does not disengage from your feet, you just tumble and maybe slide a bit, then hop up and go again. No poles to mess with, either. The lack of releasable bindings isn’t a big deal. Since both feet are fastened to the same board, your whole lower half is a very strong and stable construction. You can’t possibly twist one leg around and snap an ankle or knee, the way you can on skis.) The single downfall for me was that rope tows were tougher. It was hard to keep the pulling force cent
