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?

Check your holiday insurance, OP, as without ensuring you have a qualified instructor, you may find your proposal to “wing it” invalidates it.
Skiing is a dangerous sport and the terrain you are visiting is dangerous. Even without snow. A few years back a family went to a ski resort in summer for mountain biking and the 5-year old cycled straight off the edge of a cliff and was killed.
For context, skiing is much more dangerous than cycling. Even on the blue and green pistes, you might be only a few metres from a steep drop, and not being able to ski yourselves means that you wouldn’t be able to prevent your kids if they got into trouble and went off-piste accidentally.
TBH you sound criminally negligent with your responses to PP’s advice. Seriously, book yourselves and the kids into ski school, or cancel the holiday!

It is a bad plan, sorry OP.

If you can't borrow money for ski school, urgently go to a dry ski slope as a family and explain the problem, pay for family tuition. See how that goes and imagine doing it without instruction, on real snow.

If you go ahead, you each must have a helmet to ski in. And you should probably aim only to ski a little bit, spend some time having snowball fights or toboganning instead.

you tube videos
😆😆😆

Children and adults fall off T bar lifts up to the nursery slopes all the time. I am just shuddering at the thought of one or all of you not mastering that and then immediately you will be separated.

Then one of you will need to go back down and rescue the one fallen without getting hit by the others coming up.

T bar lifts are for the most basic of slopes but we are usually talking about a good distance so the separation of you from one of your DC is an extremely scary and dangerous thing.

What if one needs to go to the loo? What if you lose one of them? Children tend to go faster and have naturally far less fear. Mountains are huge, expansive and their are a lot of trails, if you are not familiar with the colour coding you could find yourselves on a black just by one wrong turn which is basically a sheer drop for the inexperienced.

This is so breathtakingly idiotic it's not even funny.

How you could even think of putting your DC's lives in danger and those around them. An out of control skier of any size is a menace because they can flatten others around them like skittles and you can be seriously injured or killed.

It's like saying, oh I have ridden a donkey on a beach and I have watched a few videos and I have booked a riding holiday for my family of 3 young children with knowing even how to get on or off, the equipment needed or what to do if one gallops off by mistake.

Breathtaking lunacy. But to think BOTH PARENTS THOUGHT IT WAS A GOOD IDEA!

Only on MN!

@Happyhappyday

OP if you’ve been skiing once before I can virtually guarantee you don’t know enough to do this safely or to enjoy it. Do you know what socks to wear? Do you know if you get a wrinkle in your (kids’) socks it will be agony later in the day? Do you actually know how boots should feel if it fits well? Do you know what DIN settings are to ensure skis release correctly in case of falls? About how to dry boots overnight? How to get skis back on effectively when you’re on a slope? How to help someone else get their skis back on? What to do when you accidentally ski past the bottom of the lift you need and have to take an unfamiliar one back up? Do you own/have access to a weeks’ worth of baselayers, glove liners, spare fleeces etc? Do you do other outdoor activities in the cold regularly?

I'm sorry but this is not a holiday, reading that is exhausting

This thread is going to get picked up by the national press and give all of us here in the UK a bad name at home and abroad as an example of the stupidest parents of all time.

MN can you delete this thread before it causes international damage please?

Have reported hopefully before any damage is done.

And if anyone else thinks it is a good idea please please get help now.

Which resort are you going to?

Some resorts have dedicated beginners areas with a conveyor belt lift so you just shuffle on and off. You could go with one parent on foot with one child, keep hold of the child at all times (reins?) to get the idea of how it feels to slide.

Any more than that would be dangerous, especially as you don't have the expertise to teach your children. Could be nice for the children for an hour, but you definitely shouldn't try anything more ambitious than that without an instructor.

Well that's a very stupid and dangerous idea! Apparently keeping up with the Jones is more important than your children's safety

I've skied every year for about 15 years now and there is no way I would have the skill or patience to teach anyone.
This would ruin my holiday

@Tarne

Have reported hopefully before any damage is done.

And if anyone else thinks it is a good idea please please get help now.

I fail to see how it could be a good idea even if the parents were world class skiers.

Just getting a 5, 7 and 8 year old ready for ski school would be hardworking.

I went skiing with my daughter aged around 6 and she didn’t want to go to the ski school so I did pretty much that tried to teach her on my own- I had skied myself for many years and it was an absolute disaster, was not enjoyable for either of us and I wish I had been more persistent with her attending the ski school. Let’s just say it never happened again and put her off skiing for life! If you cannot afford ski school maybe just stick to sledging and the apres ski

Yabu. I hope this is a wind up.

You'll have wasted your holiday money to get stressed with your dc's for a week while they want to throw snowballs. Leave the teaching to instructors.

I'm afraid I have to agree with everyone. I've never fancied a skiing holiday. I did go dry slope skiing a couple of times years ago and ended up on my arse most of the time. It was a lot more difficult than it looked.
Hopefully this thread has made you reconsider. I know you said you can't afford lessons but even one day learning the absolute basics would be better than nothing.

What a really weird choice of holiday when none of you really ski! If you aren't going to properly learn then what's the point? Is there any way you can remove the ski portion and find other stuff to do when you're there?

This has to be a joke? You who can’t ski is going to teach your children? How do you plan to teach them to stop, use lifts, pick them up when they fall when you can’t even do it yourself 😂 get them and yourself some lessons - money can’t be that tight if your going on a ski holiday.

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,

I would hire some sledges.
Honestly, we live near the Alps and our kids have skiied( cheaply) all their lives. It has always scared the crap out of me . I could never imagine trying to bundle three young dc onto a ski lift. Cancel and re-book when you have the funds to do it properly.

Are you able to cancel the ski holiday and go somewhere else instead?? It will be miserable, dangerous and probably put your children off skiing for life.

Do something fun instead and save the skiing for when you have the funds to do it properly

This thread has given me a giggle during the night feeds! OP, you are crazy to think you can do that

Another vote for this being a very bad idea. But having said that, it sounds like you can't afford the lessons OR cancel.

So if you are going ahead with your plan, please learn from my mistakes:

• Spend all day on 'bunny hill', don't venture into any areas with fast/expert skiiers
• Take many breaks
• Make sure you and partner have phones fully charged all day long
• Cram your pockets full of sweets to lure miserable children out of snowbanks/crash sites
• Wear PROPER GEAR - one child with cold hands can ruin the day before you even start skiing
• LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS - this will not be an instagram-worthy holiday!

OP you're getting a hard time but for some very good reasons, I'm a pretty experienced skier DS has been skiing since he was 4, but he was taught one to one by an instructor, even now (he's 13) he'll still have a few lessons when we go there's always something new he wants to learn.
I'd suggest looking at getting the kids into morning ski school, then you and OH can spend some time sorting yourselves out and seeing what you feel up to for the afternoons. at their ages there's usually plenty of scope for other things to do.

You could go with one parent on foot with one child, keep hold of the child at all times (reins?) to get the idea of how it feels to slide
The children are 7 & 8 they can't wear reins FFS. DH has mountain guiding qualifications, I have skied for 20 years. Feb half term 2017 we and another family couldn't get the kids into ski school (was full) The other adults (So 4 of us in total) had also skied since childhood, we all go every year. The children had all skied before ages 5,8 and 10. It was incredibly hard work and particularly the 8yo boy was very difficult to keep safe.

The 10yo (dd) had one further year of lessons age 12. The first year we went without lessons for DC they were 15& 13.

You can't do this.

If you can’t afford ski school, then don’t go. I can’t believe you are even considering this.

I imagine that you will very quickly have your lift passes removed by the patrols once they realise you are out of control.