Stöten Magazine

Teach your kids to snowboard - here's how

We have previously explained how to introduce your child to slalom skiing, as well as sharing suitable exercises for teaching your child to ski. However, not everyone wants to try slalom. Some would rather learn to snowboard. That's why in this article we thought we'd share some helpful tips and advice for teaching your child to snowboard - whether you ski, snowboard or neither!

How to teach your child to snowboard

The most important thing to keep in mind when teaching your child to snowboard is that it should be fun. Putting too much pressure on children usually results in them losing motivation to continue. With that out of the way, here are our top tips and advice for introducing your child to snowboarding:

1. make them comfortable with the equipment

The first thing you should do is introduce your child to the equipment. Show them what equipment they should be wearing and also let them try out what it's like to wear the boots, jacket, helmet and all the other equipment.

2. start with the balance

Balance is one of the most fundamental aspects of both snowboarding and skiing. A good tip is therefore to start training the sense of balance early. Here it can be helpful to let the children stand on the snowboard on flat ground. Let them stand on their own until they learn to keep their balance.

Once they can stand still on the spot, it's time to introduce some speed. Again, it can be helpful to stay on level ground. Stand next to them, grab their hands and pull them forwards.

Some children's boards even have a string at the front of the board, which you can use to pull them forwards. A big advantage of this is that they learn to find their balance using their arms.

As your confidence and knowledge grow, you can move on to longer and steeper slopes

3. Introduce some speed

When you feel that the balance and motivation are there, you can slowly but surely start to introduce speed. For this purpose, the beginners' favourite slope - Lill Haren on Soltorget - is perfect. Go up with the treadmill and glide slowly down the slope!

Here it is good if you do not hold their hands, but teach the children to find the balance themselves using their arms. Of course, it is possible to walk alongside or be two people - one who stands a little further forward and one who is at the start.

4. teach them to brake

Once children can slide straight ahead, it is important to teach them how to brake. Initially, this is best done by teaching children to lean back slightly, put their hands on the ground and sit on their bum. This way they learn the same movement as when turning and braking 'for real'.

5. Introduce them to the lift

When both balance and braking are starting to come into play, well then it's time to introduce the kids to Kortknappen or Vargliften. Two child-friendly lifts that take them up to some of the beginners' favourite slopes!

If they don't want to go on the lift just yet, that's fine. Take the opportunity to have a cosy break in the warming hut and enjoy a cup of hot chocolate. There will be a time when the children will want to try to get up the slope via the lift.

As your confidence and knowledge grow, you can move on to longer and steeper slopes. As you know, with us you have 50 slopes and descents to choose from!

Visit Soltorget - there are plenty of areas for those who want to practise balance!

To summarise

The most important thing to remember when teaching your child to snowboard is that it should be fun. If you have fun together and adopt the above tips, snowboarding will be there in due course.

By teaching your child to put their hands down and sit on their bum when they want to stop, they will automatically make the same movement as when turning and braking for real. Simplifying the next step in the learning process!

We hope you now have plenty of tips to help your child learn to snowboard. If you don't feel comfortable taking on the task on your own, we at Stöten offer snowboard lessons. Take a look our offers or book your trip to have a great experience with us at Stöten in Sälen - see you on the slopes!

Stöten in brief

Stöten has been voted for several years in a row as Sweden's best ski resort of Freerides readers
There are 50 slopes with different levels of difficulty
There are 45 kilometres of cross-country ski trails, 3 km of which are lit
Stöten is home to Sälen's longest descent - Morsmor's 3060 metre plunge
Pisten Älvan has previously been voted Sweden's best piste
Stöten has been awarded Sweden's best ski resort for families with children

Activities in Sälen

In Stöten there is a wide range of activities for the whole family - both on and off the slopes! In addition to Sälen's best skiing, Stöten has all this and more;

Keep an eye out this spring calendar to make sure you don't miss out on all the fun happening in Stöten!