Preparing Your Special Needs Child for Ski Lessons: Travel Tips Tuesday

 

One of the greatest joys of parenting is watching your kids conquer a new skill.  Whether it’s taking the first step or skiing down the mountain for the first time, the parent has the privilege of feeling their heart swell with pride as their child takes that next step into maturity.

This feeling increases exponentially when you are the parent of special needs child.  When these special kiddos accomplish a new skill there is even more reason to celebrate because that success is usually due, in large part, to the parents and other adults laying the groundwork to help the child bust through the challenges and find success.

Downhill skiing is a skill that might at first seem out of reach for many children with special needs, but adaptive programs across the country are making it possible for kids with all abilities to feel the thrill of whooshing down the mountain.  Preparing special needs kids for their first skiing experience takes a bit of preplanning, but that effort will pay off when you see their smiling faces after their first successful run.

Preparing Your Special Needs Child for Ski Lessons

1.       Choose a lesson center with special needs experience.  The best chance of success is in choosing the right place to take lessons from the start.   The National Sports Center for the Disabled based out of Winter Park is a great place to begin researching the programs for special needs skiers.   Since 1970, NSCD has been making skiing possible for kids with almost any kind of physical, cognitive, behavioral, or emotional diagnosis.  They are widely accepted as the leaders in the field of therapeutic sports, with specially trained staff and volunteers and an adaptive equipment lab onsite.  Although the program is filled with expertise, the volunteer instructors seem to be the heart of the operation.  As one instructor shared, “I am supposed to be here to help them (the students), but they are the ones who help me.”  

2.       Request an instructor with special needs experience.  You might think this is an obvious suggestion, but the best ski instructor is not always the best special needs ski instructor.  When you make your reservations, talk for a few moments about your needs and ask to be matched with an instructor that has experience with those needs.  If possible, talk with the instructor via phone or email before your lessons, so you can share your expectations and concerns, as well as let them in on any secrets that will help your child best succeed.

 

3.       Be specific about your needs. Now is not the time to keep your cards close.  The more you can share about your child’s needs, the more likely you are to find an experience that will yield success.  Are they afraid of loud voices or soft touches?  Are they more likely to respond to a female instructor? How do they respond during stress?   You make think certain details are inconsequential, but your instructor wants to help your child find success, and they need all the particulars to do that.  Particularly, don’t be afraid to share the potential struggles or fears your child might bring to their first lesson, and any suggestions you might have to combat those fears.

4.       Do the necessary prep work. There is a host of new and unfamiliar experiences that go along with skiing that happen before you ever hit the mountain.  Dealing with the equipment and the sometimes different weather can be enough to throw off the chances of success.   Up your chances of success by introducing these new elements before the lesson actually begins.  Fit the equipment a day or two before lessons begin and allow your child to spend some time in the gear to get used to the fit and feel.  If you need specialized gear, try it out and make sure it meets your needs and fits comfortably and securely. 

5.       Anticipate the challenges…but prepare for the successes.  Parenting a special needs child is often like a very difficult childbirth.  There is pain and setbacks.  Just when you are convinced you are making progress, you find that you have not progressed at all.  The typical interventions are often totally unsuccessful. Nothing is textbook.  And, at some point, you will feel completely incapable of pressing through the pain and want to give up.  But, when the baby is finally placed in your arms, the pain and hardship is completely washed away by unspeakable joy, and you know that you would go through it all again, to have that moment of joy.

That is exactly the joy I felt when my special needs son, after falling and crying and almost giving up, successfully completed his first ski run.  As he stood confidently next to his instructor smiling broadly, I sat at the top of the mountain and wiped away joyous tears.   It felt as though my labor-the groundwork that I had laid and the fervent worry I had dedicated to his success-had been a lonely task.  But, I was not alone in celebrating the victory.  My son and I shared that triumph together.