Teaching a youngin'

[boarderboy]

I'm trying to design/build an all-mountain twintip for my soft-booting 12--year-old son before Xmas.

Plan on profiling the core myself and vacuum bagging the laminates, probably routing the camber into the core rather than pressing it in initially.

Realize this thread is about teaching/equipping young kids, but my son is really, really, small for 12, weighs 74 lbs., so the equipment advice might be interesting to those with very young ones coming up.

Will soon start a separate post with my initial design, son's specs, and likely riding conditions/terrain. Will have many questions, so any input will be really

appreciated.

Sincere thanks and good luck to you who'll be teaching the next carver generation this season! :lol:

[Steve Prokopiw]

can't wait to see it.Very cool project.You might be on to something.BTW at twelveyears old I wrestled in the 70 lb weight bracket.I did all my growing from sophmore year on,including another 2" after graduating.If my boys are 74 lbs at twelve I'll be surprised and pleased for them.

[kinpa]

My daughter started skiing on and off at a very young age. We used a lot of teaching aids (www.kid-ski.com they also have something for snowboarding, but haven't tried it!). She is very timid like I am so we took things quite slow. Last year, at age 6 (young 6, her birthday is in October), ske wanted to snowboard. I was a bit reluctant to let her start at that age, but I spend a lot of time on the beginner hill teaching and I thought she'd be happy to hang out there while I was teaching. WRONG! She gets bored skiing there, but still needs a lot of help on her snowboard because she has trouble with the rope tow. I usually get on my skiis to help her and take a hula-hoop to put her in while I'm going down behind her controlling her speed. My friend and supervisor has helped her a few times and got her up the rope tow with only minimal "help" (so she thinks he's helping her, but isn't really!) I got plate bindings for her board because (1) I didn't want to be changing her boots all day and (2) I thought it would be easier for her to control the board with her ski boots. Last year we got her doing some heel-side stops on her own. I really didn't want to put any expectations or pressure on her to do it. The nice thing now is that whe she gets tired, bored, or frustrated with her snowboard, she can easily hop on her skiis and go for a run on the mountain. Oh yeah.... she no longer uses the Panda helmet cover.... she's moved on to a tiger! Grrrrrr..... hahaha

[MUD]

Plan on profiling the core myself and vacuum bagging the laminates, probably routing the camber into the core rather than pressing it in initially.

That is going to be one THIN profile.......

Keep us posted!

[rocketman]

When my kids were 4 & 7 we all had enough of skiing on 600' or less hills.

We all went out bought crappy soft boards and had a great time as a family learning how to snowboard. The local hill was all of 200' high and that was all we needed for the first year. We all excelled at the same speed.

11 years later we all ski, Carve, all mountain, and the kids love the park. I fill the pick up just with gear when we travel for a ski holiday.

My daughter and I are spending a week out west together Sun Peaks to carve and Whistler to All mountain and ski - its her last year at home before University.

Funnest way to keep your family together.

[Bubba]

Doug,

I have a 101 with size 1 boots sitting in my closet if you wan't to borrow it. Let me know, I will be at Buck each weekend.

Kenton

[Sinecure]

Wow! This is the best discussion I've ever seen on this subject. Mike T and Steve P's advice seems right in line with my experiences. I've let both my kids decide what sliding tools they like best and given them full opportunity to enjoy both. My son is now 14 and my daughter 11. Both learned to ski at very young ages and both were allowed to first try snowboarding around age 6. From what I've seen, most kids just don't have the core strength, endurance and balance skills to snowboard until around age 8. There are exceptions to every rule and those who skateboard a ton probably have an advantage. If you do teach them snowboarding at a young age, make sure they have really warm/dry clothes so they aren't miserable when sitting on their butts in the snow.

My son took a bunch of sb lessons and got to be pretty good. But decided he prefers skiing and that's what he does 95% of the time. He snowboards when his flatlander friends come up skiing so that they are at the same pace (you know, the friends who tell your kid that they can ski "double blacks" but panic when your kids believes them and takes them to the top of a hard blue run). My daughter loved boarding after about her 4th or 5th day and wanted to switch to just sb at age 8. Unfortunately our hill only had a ski team at the time, no sb team. At age 9 they established a sb team and she switched for good.

I'm pleased that they both can slide either way. I also like the fact that they made the decision on their own, rather than feeling they should do what dad does, or choose one or the other because it was "cool" - its notable that skiing is clearly "cool" again - my son has no negative opinion on either method and it seems his friends don't exhibit any bias or discrimination toward boarders or skiers. My only real goal is to make sure that they continue to want to go to the snow with me. So far so good.