![]() ![]() ![]() Sooner than later Aubrin wasn’t just surviving (putting up with) these frequent excursions, she was thriving. Lucky for us, or perhaps by shear persistence, she handled the long drives, copious amount of gear, probable temperature discomfort, etc…really well and was quickly conditioned to ‘the new normal.’ We were going to keep doing what we love, and she was going to fit in just fine. ![]() Those first few months were important to test the waters and see how she reacted to the process, the gear, the weather, etc… and allowed us to adjust and learn what worked best for us, from how to best time the hour drive to how well her gear was or was not working and the expected length of time we could spend out at a given temperature. While 18 months old is a bit unrealistic to expect much ‘technical learning’ to take place it served two very important functions it allowed Samantha and I to keep doing what we love as a family, instilling strong feelings of pride and happiness into this whole first time parenting endeavor and it conditioned Aubrin through experiential learning. While AUBRIN’s FIRST CHAIR and subsequent dad-carry snowboard descent happened before she even turned one year old, her story on a snowboard more accurately began at 18 months old when she got her very own tiny shred stick and seasons pass, marking the beginning of weekly trips to the mountain during the 2018-2019 season With enough patience and dedication, anyone can learn the skill of riding a plank down a slope, but if you don’t discover the magic and develop the passion, you’re missing out on the most transformative aspect of snowboarding. Learning HOW to snowboard, and learning what snowboarding is are two profoundly different things one develops a skill and the other introduces you to a way of life. Every child will and should discover snowboarding at their own pace and everything we’ve done revolves around the goal of cultivating a passion for snowboarding within our daughter that is self-driven rather than expectantly applied from an outside source (us as parents).īefore strapping our daughter to a snowboard we knew this was going to be a two stage process. If there was a ‘correct’ way to do this the answer would already be out there and we wouldn’t be writing this. Our first suggestion is to get rid of your expectations as they can be incredibly damaging to the process. We are not experts but are currently and thoroughly immersed in the trial and error process so hopefully many will find helpful tips from our experience. It is also worth noting that our experience of teaching our daughter to snowboard is shaped by the fact that we are already avid snowboarders looking to share the experience and our passion for snowboarding with her. Just like when we designed and built our tiny house on wheels, I’m not a fan of saying ‘ this is how you should do it to be successful’ and instead prefer to remove any sort of authoritative tone on the subject matter and speak in a way that says ‘ this is what we are doing in our particular circumstances and here are the results.’ We too are just fellow parents trying our hardest and we hope you find some nuggets of information you think will be useful and incorporate them into your family dynamic as you see fit. The title to this blog post is probably inaccurate. The best part is, she is the one requesting to snowboard every week and we’re now riding more than we did before having kids. Our daughter started riding the chairlift with her own board at 18 months old and is now in the midst of her third full season at three years old. This post is a long winded answer to the above question, which is the only thing we are asked more than ‘ WHAT CAMERA DO YOU USE.’ We’re here to tell you that not only is snowboarding with your toddler possible, it’s incredibly rewarding too. “Do you have any tips for getting a young toddler on a snowboard?” ![]()
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