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?

I hope you have decent insurance in place.

This is nuts. Would you teach your kids to ride a horse if you had been on one for a couple of hours yourself?

Everyone will be miserable.

You have no idea about risk, repeat RISK.
You with your little experience and bags of confidence are like people who go out in a friends yacht for a few Sundays then buy boat of their own.
They usually frighten the family witless and worst of all put them off sailing for good.

Ps have you got proper clothing or going to carry on with (imitation) Barbour jackets and cycling overtrousers?

Book children into ski school

Then you are free to do your own thing !

@Merryoldgoat

I’m no skier. But it sounds pretty mad to try to teach three small children to ski when neither of you can ski yourselves.

This.

We aren’t putting DS4 in ski school, but equally I’m not really expecting him to do much skiing. DH doesn’t ski, so he’ll have a couple of mornings with me and spend the rest of the time in the pool, playing in the snow, and going on hikes. If he likes it, I’ll book him into ski school next year (we lived in Canada until he was 2 and he loves the snow, but 2 was too young to learn really).

OP, what are you planning on teaching them each day? How are you planning to control three children? If one loses control, are either you or your DP capable of chasing after them and stopping them?

@danishkids

This time round money is too tight to put them in ski school. So we thought we could take it slowly, learning together. I have watched some YouTube videos to try and learn the basics (I know it will be different in real life but it’s a start)

Sounds like I am being unreasonable

Has anyone taught yourself and kids on your own?

Do you have money for the school fine?

And yes get lessons for yourself.

The first time I went snowboarding (I could already ski), there was one guy in the group who was “self taught” via YouTube. My DBro is a snowboard instructor. DBro taught me in the mornings and I practiced in the afternoon. Mr Self Taught was invited to join us but said he didn’t need lessons.

Of course I was lapping him by about day 3, because I had been taught what to do and was being given feedback on what I was doing wrong.

Do you have money for the school fine?

She’s a home-schooler, couldn’t you guess?

@TatianaBis

Read the thread

I have, what's your point? OP said she is 'looking into' lessons. Not that she has booked them.

@danishkids
Polite approach?
I’m certain if everyone was polite you would’ve gone ahead without booking lessons! People are only reacting to how dangerous it could be. They are looking out for you and your children. I don’t think you would’ve realised how badly injured you can get skiing. People think they are invincible , and some life threatening accident will never happen to them. It’s happens to so many people each year, why do think it can’t happen to you?

I am looking forward to hearing about the holiday and hope you will update us!

As @Happyhappyday says - enjoy a snow holiday rather than trying to teach yourselves to ski. Go sledding and ice skating and have nice meals in the mountain huts. Save money by not buying a full ski pass for all days - the baby slope often requires no pass and many resorts have beginners' passes. If you go sledging you can buy a single ticket.

Going against the grain here but if your DH has been on a few ski trips, I reckon he could teach the kids to do snow plough turns on the baby slope and that might keep them entartained for a couple of days. If they take to it, get them one lesson mid week to move them on to trying parallel turns and/or easier blues. No-one is going to get really good at skiing without lessons, but you don't necessarily need full time ski school either.

Have a nice holiday!

I actually don't think people are being harsh to OP.
"Be kind, I was asking a question I don't know much about" only takes you so far. The approach OP has suggested taking and doubled down for quite a while despite the posts (and this is despite apparently having done research!!!!) is extremely negligent, and dangerous.
If you were responsible for an accident and tried telling me "but I didn't knowwww" that would NOT excuse you. That si reserved for things like " oh I bought the wrong gloves/ski mask" or "oh sorry, I didn't realise there was a queue in this cafe" or something...not something as irresponsible as what OP is describing. She is an adult and should take some responsibility. Ignorance is not an excuse for this madness

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

But I'm sure those tips are for parents who can actually ski themselves. If you and your DH were experienced skiers you wouldn't have got all the incredulous comments, but as neither of you can ski yourselves how are you planning to keep your children safe on the slopes if you will be concentrating on your own lack of skiing abilities? Hopefully you have booked them and yourselves onto some proper lessons.

@danishkids

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

Are you planning on holding your iPad watching the videos whilst wizzing down the slopes? There’s a good reason why people are commenting on your “intelligence’”, you’re proposing to take children on holiday to do a very dangerous activity that you have no experience of, your Dh has limited experience of, and you seem to think it’s going to be fine! I can guess what’s going to happen. Your DH will spend the first day with you and the kids ‘tech wing’ you all how to ski. Then he’ll spend the rest of the holiday on the slopes whilst you supervise the kids on the nursery slope, not actually doing much skiing yourself. Then you’ll come back here and tell us we were all wrong and you had a fabulous time and were all doing black runs by day 3.

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

As a scuba diver, I find it really surprising that it isn't, or at least there don't seem to be any controls on skiing.

To rent equipment from a scuba dive shop, or participate in group dives, you have to have passed a basic course that takes about a week to do, so similar to five mornings in ski school learning the basics.

Also, if you dive outside your qualifications, your travel insurance is invalid, so you're at risk of running up five figure bills for helicopter rescue or hospital treatment.

And you're only really at risk of drowning yourself (obviously if someone finds you in trouble and tries to rescue you, you're putting them at risk but there aren't unqualifed people bombing around in the sea knocking others over).

But it seems that you can rent ski equipment, use a lift or go down any of the runs with no-one checking that you can actually ski or stop yourself getting out of control and falling, or knocking someone else over. Madness.

I have 3 children who have skiied since they were little. My husband and I are both very good skiers and we found it hard taking them out in the afternoons. I would put them in 6 days of ski school for a couple of hours each morning. Granted its more money but you will get much more out of your holiday.

As PP suggested you may find it more economical to hire a private instructor to teach the 5 of you. I would suggest only skiing in the mornings and doing fun stuff in the afternoons. You will still enjoy the atmosphere and the beauty of the scenery.

My tuppence worth, a skilled instructor (of almost anything) is familiar with common mistakes and misunderstandings, so for example they can quickly diagnose why you are falling over, why you are turning too sharply, what the effect is of shifting your weight too far forward or back, all of which the untrained eye would not spot.

There is absolutely no way of doing a skiing holiday like this without ski school. You won't get anything out of it - either just going up the button lift one by one while the other one sits at the bottom freezing with impatient children while you take a turn to go down the nursery slope. It'll be hugely boring and feel like a ridiculous effort after struggling three kids into boots/ carrying all the gear etc.

Plus you don't have any skill to begin to teach children to ski - you need to be very proficient / skiing backwards / giving relevant support without even thinking about what you're doing. The reality is a million miles away from what you're thinking!

Hahhahhaaaa…no. Don’t do this, you will have a crap holiday! It may cost more but least you will all get the best experience instead of paying presumably a lot for a rubbish time. Two inexperienced skiers in charge of teaching 3 children? Hard no.

Hi @danishkids you’ve had a lot of pointless and useless replies! I’m going to try to be helpful and I say this as someone with 35 years ski experience and having taught multiple children…
If your husband has skid a few times he may be able to help teach youngest one or two by skiing with them between his legs, it’s how I learnt, and it’s how I’ve taught multiple 3 to 7 year olds.
You can then focus on helping the other two.
Learning how to use button and chair lifts will be critical, as will learning to fall, gather themselves up, and put skis back on/ face across the mountain and snow plough/ stop. Using those terms and learning the vocabulary prior to hitting the slopes will help a little.
Finally, you say only 5 day ski school passes, but all the ski resorts will do hourly tutors and they’ll take the whole family. An hour or two with a private instructor on the first morning will get you all off to a good start!!! And will be far cheaper than a round of steak hache/ pomme frit in the mountainside restaurant!

And just to clarify - this is nothing like travelling long distance with children. That requires logistics / planning, but a walk in the park compared to trying to do something you are physically incapable of!

@BarbaraofSeville it is surprising that people can just hire gear and go off skiing.

Indoor and artificial slopes all want a level of competence before they'll allow people to use facilities.
Not sure why outdoor skiing is different. I suspect it is the same as bike use. Could you image the whoo ha if suddenly you needed a Cycling Proficiency Certificate to ride on a bike

@danishkids

This time round money is too tight to put them in ski school. So we thought we could take it slowly, learning together. I have watched some YouTube videos to try and learn the basics (I know it will be different in real life but it’s a start)

Sounds like I am being unreasonable

Has anyone taught yourself and kids on your own?

So save up and go next year.

You'd be absolutely mad to do it yourselves and you'd probably get in the way of other skiers.

Plus, there's two of you and three of them

Don't do it

Going against the grain here but if your DH has been on a few ski trips, I reckon he could teach the kids to do snow plough turns on the baby slope and that might keep them entartained for a couple of days. If they take to it, get them one lesson mid week to move them on to trying parallel turns and/or easier blues.

But this wouldn't be safe because he has only had a few trips and so he's pretty much a novice himself and novice skiers are terrible at assessing risk. Skiing is one area where the more you know the more you realise you don't know. And these are kids, not a bunch of mates on a boozy weekend.

I wouldn't let a beginner out without a really good skier who knows what gradient is needed for their ability, understands how conditions can change during the day, how to use lifts safely with a child (what if your kid falls over on the drag lift? Can you get yourself and them out of the way and back down safely?), how to catch a runaway child etc. So many things can go wrong very quickly when you are skiing, you need to be able to deal with that.

@Fruitbatdancer

Hi *@danishkids* you’ve had a lot of pointless and useless replies! I’m going to try to be helpful and I say this as someone with 35 years ski experience and having taught multiple children… If your husband has skid a few times he may be able to help teach youngest one or two by skiing with them between his legs, it’s how I learnt, and it’s how I’ve taught multiple 3 to 7 year olds. You can then focus on helping the other two. Learning how to use button and chair lifts will be critical, as will learning to fall, gather themselves up, and put skis back on/ face across the mountain and snow plough/ stop. Using those terms and learning the vocabulary prior to hitting the slopes will help a little. Finally, you say only 5 day ski school passes, but all the ski resorts will do hourly tutors and they’ll take the whole family. An hour or two with a private instructor on the first morning will get you all off to a good start!!! And will be far cheaper than a round of steak hache/ pomme frit in the mountainside restaurant!

May be able.

What if he's not?

Much better to wait a year and save up and do it properly.