Aibu to Think that it Will be easy enough to go on a ski holiday with a 5, 7 and 8 year Old, without putting the kids in ski School?

[danishkids]

We Will go on our first ski holiday ever on Saturday and I’m really looking forward to it. But the more I chat with friends/family, the more people are making me nervous. We are 2 adults, my husband and I. I have only ever been on skis for a few hours when I was 16. My husband has skied a few times.

Everyone I talk to tells me that I’m
Crazy and that it’s impossible to teach 3 kids at once. That it will only end up
With irritated children and parents. Am
I crazy to think that it will be fine? Or am
I just having wishful thinking?

Do you have any tips for first time
Skiers? Especially with kids? Any good techniques to help the kids learn fast?

I’m exited about this holiday, but maybe I shouldn’t be?

My sister and I never went to ski school - Dad taught us. BUT he was an expert skier and is also an unusually kind and patient person, and there's a big age gap between DSis and me so he only had to teach one of us at a time. Have you thought about how you're even going to manage ski lifts, given that the kids outnumber you? This is a terrible idea - worst case someone will get badly hurt, best case you'll have a shit time and nobody will end up being able to ski. Even if you and DH were expert skiers, motivating and teaching children is hard. Ski school is pretty much essential, and ideally the two of you should be going too! Can you get a new credit card before you leave and put ski school on that?

OP I realise that you're getting a of very blunt responses to your suggestion (my response above included) and I realise it's probably now put a dampener on your holiday. Why don't you just go with the attitude that the kids can play in the snow, you can all drink hot chocolates in some pretty snowy surroundings and enjoy it a non ski trip? You'll be able to find some gentle slopes for sledging and messing around with the kids, just please please don't put them on skis and hope for the best.

Ski accidents are brutal, it's just not worth risking them, or yourselves.

@danishkids apart from needing to be good enough to teach your kids you will need to use ski lifts. You don't mention how young your children are but ski lifts can be a challenge, very young kids need you to accompany them on the drag lifts and chair lifts also require an accompanying adult. You will be tired and frustrated if you don't book ski school for all of you. Source: I live in a European country and our family skis most weekends.

You and your DH are non skiers. You can’t teach your DC’s.

DH and I have skied since we were toddlers but our DC’s went to ski school when they started skiing.

I have watched some YouTube videos to try and learn the basics

This just sounds dangerous. To others around you - your risk is yours, but your DC are very likely to be a risk to others.

Children under about 10 or 11 have very little idea of those around them in ordinary life, and on the ski slopes could be quite dangerous! I'd be furious if a 5 year old non-skier with non-skiing parents caused me to fall.

Why don't you just go with the attitude that the kids can play in the snow, you can all drink hot chocolates in some pretty snowy surroundings and enjoy it a non ski trip? You'll be able to find some gentle slopes for sledging and messing around with the kids, just please please don't put them on skis and hope for the best

Best advice on this thread!

[quote Chocolatefreak]@danishkids apart from needing to be good enough to teach your kids you will need to use ski lifts. You don't mention how young your children are but ski lifts can be a challenge, very young kids need you to accompany them on the drag lifts and chair lifts also require an accompanying adult. You will be tired and frustrated if you don't book ski school for all of you. Source: I live in a European country and our family skis most weekends.[/quote]
The kids are 5, 7, and 8 - it says in the thread title. And yes, lifts will be a challenge!

Look at the price of afternoon ski lessons, they are normally considerably cheaper than the morning ones as everyone wants their lesson in the morning then to practice in the afternoon. You would just need to do it the other way around plus it would give you time for a lazier more relaxed start to the day.
Also check out private lessons, you can get instructors that will teach the whole family together and it might be cheaper than paying for separate sets of ski lesson. Again instructors are cheaper in the afternoon. Skiing's an expensive holiday and it would be a shame not to get the most enjoyment from it as you can by not having lessons, also you'll get to see much more of the mountains if you have a professional taking you around.

@danishkids

You say you can’t afford the lessons. You actually cannot afford not to. Without lessons, you or your kids could wind up seriously injured or dead. You are also risking prison and serious debt, wiping out your entire savings, finding yourselves homeless and still in treble figure or more debt if one of you negligently maims or kills someone.

I cannot believe after the pages and pages of comments that you are intent on continuing regardless.

People (as ever on here these days, not sure what has happened to MN) are being harsh.

Yes, you have asked an apparently stupid question but you explained what happened.

Most resorts have a nursery slope with a drag (which you don’t even need a ski pass for). These are really gentle and hard to get hurt on.

I would stick to doing 1-2 hours with the family on that. You never know, some of your children may just ‘get’ it, it does happen. Even if they don’t, it is fresh air and beautiful scenery.

And, for the rest of the time , sledging and playing in the snow. There is also the possibility of ‘ski du fond’ if everyone is a good walker and enjoys it (basically hiking on skis).

Go with a positive attitude and ask locals for advice.

@Mummyoflittledragon,

I don’t think OP intends to take them up the top of a slope and throw them down the steepest black!

And, why don’t you understand that if you can’t afford something, you can’t afford it. It is not somehow a choice of making yourself afford it.

And there is minimal risk of hurting yourself or anyone else on a nursery slope.

@danishkids

This poster has it correct. Without lessons, your negligent parenting could result in this:

Without lessons, you or your kids could wind up seriously injured or dead. You are also risking prison and serious debt, wiping out your entire savings, finding yourselves homeless and still in treble figure or more debt if one of you negligently maims or kills someone.

The price of lessons is the minimum cost you could face. And it's not just about your or your kids - there are other people on the slopes too and you're potentially putting everyone at harm for what? The "look" of a ski holiday? Because it won't be an experience because you won't be able to actually do anything. What kind of irresponsible dolts only think about the risk of this a day before they leave. It really is the definition of fur coat and no knickers - we'll book and pay for a ski holiday but none of us actually ski and we can't afford lessons.

@katepilar

Skiing isnt that scary or dangerous as most people on here think. I wouldnt expect you do awful lot of skiing with this set up. Just go and enjoy whatever can do there,

Are you fucking kidding?

Tell that to the family of the little 5 year old killed in Flaine a couple of weeks ago. Killed by an adult skier who is now likely to be imprisoned for up to five years manslaughter.

Its dangerous for your children and more so for anyone around you and your DH. Get lessons for all of you.

I really think lessons and some sort of certification should be mandatory.

@Ski4130

OP I realise that you're getting a of very blunt responses to your suggestion (my response above included) and I realise it's probably now put a dampener on your holiday. Why don't you just go with the attitude that the kids can play in the snow, you can all drink hot chocolates in some pretty snowy surroundings and enjoy it a non ski trip? You'll be able to find some gentle slopes for sledging and messing around with the kids, just please please don't put them on skis and hope for the best.

Ski accidents are brutal, it's just not worth risking them, or yourselves.

Exactly

Think of the celebrities alone who’ve suffered from ski accidents. Some have died

Natasha Richardson died on the ski slope

Michael Schumacher is brain dead after skiing accident.

My friend is paralysed after a ski accident.

It’s just frightening that the OP doesn’t see the danger.

Hello OP.

I’m a MN lurker but your post has actually compelled me to log in and reply.

I’m 33 and have skied every year (bar the last few covid years) since the age of 3.

10 years ago I qualified as a ski instructor and taught skiing in Canada to children aged 3-10 years old.

You would be certifiably insane to try and teach 3 children who have never skied before when you and your husband are both non skiers. You will spend the entire week teaching them to walk in ski boots, put skis on, carry their skis. In my experience it can take a 3 year old a week of lessons just to learn how to side step up a small slope in skis and then stop in a pizza/snow plough with virtually no incline. Added to this you and your husband will not be able to ski as you will have no childcare. At best you might be able to take them up the magic carpet with you and your husband standing and catching them one at a time…

I think it’s completely irresponsible to be honest and a total waste of money.

You will be exhausted by the end of the week.

See. This happened in a beginner slope!!!! With an instructor and she still died

She had fallen while with an instructor on a beginners' trail two days earlier. She initially seemed fine, but would later need medical assistance and was rushed to a hospital in an ambulance.

This is the first time I have posted on AIBU and I couldn't not!

Am speechless in all honesty OP. Skiing holidays are super expensive and ski school should have been taken into consideration. I think you are crazy to not put them in ski school - I actually have no words! The risks here are also huge - to yourself and others. I hope you have helmets for everyone.

Aside from the safety concerns, I just don't think you'll get much out of doing it this way. Skiing isn't much fun until you have a basic grasp of what you're doing. As a pp said, you'll be exhausted with this approach. It's a shame, given how much money you must have spent.

@danishkids

Of course we will stick to the easiest slopes, to keep the kids and others around us safe.

You are a non skier - how do you propose getting yourself and three young DC’s to the nursery slopes?

YABVU can’t wait to see how this car crash pans out

A few people have suggested cross-country skiing as if that's an easy safe option.
it's not.
Yes, it's slower, safer and much less risky than downhill but it's not easy. If you can find a completely flat valley trail then it's all good (as the person above mentioned who took three children XC skiing without lessons).
However, most trails are not completely flat - even the blue ones.
That means you have to climb up gentle slopes (on blue runs - on red and black they can be steep!!) and it also means you have to get down them again without speed getting out of control. You need to be able to do a half-snowplough by lifting one leg out of the tracks and using it as a brake. It's not the easiest thing to do if you've never been on skis (which the kids haven't). Also the skis are much longer and unwieldy and have no metal edges on them.
One of the group should at least have been on cross-country skis before.... which it doesn't sound like they have.

Yeah, if they can find a completely flat ski trail then fine, maybe try it. At least there won't be as many people around as on a downhill slope so less risk of an out of control 7 year old flying into some other skier and causing a serious accident.

Anyway, doesn't matter what we write here. OP is going skiing tomorrow and the kids will be skiing without ski school. And cross-country skiing isn't as cool as downhill so they won't be doing that either.

Thank you for all
Of your replies.

Some of them were really mean. You can choose to say things in a polite way even if you want to get a message across.

As for being stupid, dumb, mad, idiotic etc. I genuinely didn’t realize how important ski school was. If you look online, you find information about kids ski schools, but also a lot of tips about how to teach yourself and your kids to ski.

So having only skied a few hours in my life as a teenager, I genuinely didn’t know what to expect. I also had some friends and family say it would be fine but a lot of people also said it wouldn’t.

We have also had people say to
Us that you can’t travel
Long distance with you kids, but we had no problem with that, actually we loved it!

The reason I asked here was to gain perspective, real perspective. As you can read a lot online. Some of the skiing videos we saw really gave is the impression that you can learn/teach on your own. Maybe that was wishful thinking. But there is a lot of information out there for and against learning on your own.

So for all of you that are afraid that we will
Kill someone, for those accusing me of trying to kill My kids that is just insane!

I would never want to put people at risk. We are looking into ski lessons now.

To be fair if you haven’t hit the experience how can you know about the dangers. Maybe next time take a polite approach.

I’ll
Update how the holiday goes when we are done

Ps as for having the right gear. He have bough a lot! The kids won’t freeze! I have done a lot of research. We will
Also be renting and the rental place fits the skis/boots for all of us. (Safely) so of course I won’t let my kids wear unsafe skis everyone has to start somewhere

@TheReluctantPhoenix
And, why don’t you understand that if you can’t afford something, you can’t afford it. It is not somehow a choice of making yourself afford it.

Non-skiers who can't afford ski school, can't afford a family ski holiday.

The OP and her family sound like the sort of clueless English ski numpties who make me feel embarrassed to be English when I go skiing!

Love that OP is at posters' concerns but OK with taking her non-skiing young children on a ski holiday with pretty much only a YouTube video as prep.

I really hope this is a windup!

Sorry haven’t read the whole thread but I want to be helpful (as far as I had read nobody was actually helping!)

I think you will find it a lot easier if at least one of you doesn’t ski when trying to teach the kids.
Find the easiest slope possible and start with the absolute basics. I think it might even be better for both adults to not ski when trying to teach the kids.
Keep sessions short and fun. Three year old might need an edgie-wedgie. As others have said teach them piste rules right from start.
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