Introducing skiing to a child for the first time is an exciting prospect, but carries with it the secret dread that ours might be the one laying in the middle of the piste – beating their firsts on the snow amid tears and tantrums. Here are a few tips to make that introduction as smooth as possible:

Make it familiar: It’s never too early to introduce the concept of skiing. Exposing them to the slopes – be it literally or through media, and allowing them to see your enjoyment is a great place to start. Whether they’re 10 months or 10 years, do what you can to create familiarity; they’ll be less daunted by what they know.

More so with smaller children, an enormous factor of their hesitation is having to process too many completely new ideas at once. From wearing clunky boots they’ve never seen before to tight, itchy goggles being slapped across their eyes, it can all be too much; and that’s before they’ve been packed off with a total stranger to teach them and clamped into two planks they can hardly carry. It makes sense then that if these little guys had a some prior expectations, they’d be all the better for it.

Creating these expectations is as easy as playing Youtube clips, reading a kid`s book, watching the beginner’s slope or riding a gondola. A great book, that I will shamelessly and with much bias recommend, is “Joey’s First Ski Lesson”. It details the day of Joey, a cuddly kangaroo who is setting out for his first ever ski lesson. Detailing everything from his equipment to “doing a pizza”, the bold images and rhyming narrative is an excellent way to ease a child into this unexplored territory.