How to Teach Your Three-Year-Old to Ski

You will need:

- Two skis

- Two ski boots

- One helmet

- One princess helmet cover. This is not actually necessary for teaching skiing, but will make your daughter feel like a rock star when people she doesn’t know ask to take her picture. Also, once she learns to ski, it’ll be easier to find her in the crowd. If your child isn't into wearing a princess helmet cover, there are lots of different options. (click here) If you really want to stand out in the crowd, you might want to check out the matching family raccoon helmets they show on there...especially if you want your child to learn to ski away from you really quickly.

-One harness

- One Edgie-Wedgie

- 300 chocolate chips and gummy bears

On the first day of skiing, you might think that holding your child between your legs while you ski down the mountain seems like a good idea. Unless you want to support your local chiropractor, investing in a harness is a smart move. It’s a great way to allow your child to balance on her own without breaking your own back. Once she gets the hang of this, you can just enjoy that your child can get down the mountain and that she enjoys the feeling of skiing. And you can enjoy some new ski-related conversations, like how the “magic carpet” at the ski area differs from the magic carpet that Jasmine rides on in Aladdin.

Of course, when you take the harness off your child, you’ll realize that while she may have learned to ski, she didn’t actually learn to stop. Which is kind of important. Here’s where the Edgie-Wedgie comes in handy. The next step is to take your child off the harness and attach the Edgie-Wedgie to her skis. If you consider yourself the type of parent who is above bribing her child, you might just attempt skiing backwards in front of your child yelling “Make a pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” She’ll look at you like you’re crazy, with her skis in perfect parallel lines, before crash-stopping into you and telling you she wants to get some lunch. And pizza will sound kind of good to you too.

At this point, you might as well just give in and accept that bribery can be really effective at times. Then you can fill your pockets with gummy bears and chocolate chips and attempt the backwards skiing pizza drill again, handing out a piece of candy every time she makes a snowplow. And this time? It works. Your child may gain her weight in gummy bears before she learns to ski, but there’s nothing quite like watching her go down the mountain with a huge smile on her face, yelling “I’m skiing!” Of course, it’s not a perfect system. On the last run of the day yesterday, I told Noni to “make a pizza” and she asked, “Why? You’re out of chocolate chips.”