When You Kid Refuses to Ski...and What to do about it!

When your child refuses to ski, it's easy to feel frustrated, defeated, or just plain confused — especially when you've been looking forward to the day. In this episode, I share my 4-step rescue plan for turning a resistant skier around, drawing from both her 20 years as a professional ski instructor and her own real moments of struggle with her five kids.

She walks through why kids push back in the first place (fear, frustration, or simply feeling powerless), and then breaks down exactly what to do about it: have a real conversation and actually listen, give your child meaningful choices within boundaries, bring the fun back through games and connection, and know when to call it a day to protect the long game.

This episode is honest, practical, and reassuring — a reminder that a kid who doesn't want to ski today isn't a kid who will never love skiing. They just need to feel heard, respected, and like skiing is something happening with them, not to them.

If you're ready for more help and a full framework to help you teach your kids to ski, check out First Tracks: A Parent's Guide to Teaching Kids to Ski.

Skiing with Kids is hosted by Jessica Averett, a ski instructor and mom of five who has spent more than 20 years helping kids learn to ski. This podcast helps parents create calmer, happier ski days by focusing on confidence, connection, and simple strategies that actually work with kids on the mountain.  She's the founder of First Tracks: A Parent's Guide to Teaching Kids to Ski, a course that walks parents through everything they need to know to skip overpriced ski school and confidently teach their own kids to ski.

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This quick guide will help you avoid the common ski day meltdowns and create a much smoother experience for your kids on the mountain.

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Transcript

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Welcome to Skiing With Kids, the podcast that helps you raise confidence skiers and create ski days that your family actually looks forward to. I'm your host, Jessica, and I've been teaching kids to ski for 20 years. Both as a ski instructor and a mom of five, and I'm someone who's been exactly where you might be right now. Let me paint you a picture. It's a Saturday morning, fresh snow fell overnight and the conditions are perfect and I'm excited, like genuinely super excited to take the kids. I wake everybody up with all the energy and I'm like, guys, we're gonna go skiing today and it is gonna be amazing. And one of my kids, he just sits up and looks at me and says, mom, I'm not going, not, I'm tired, not, can we go later? Just flat out I'm not going. And I literally felt everything inside of me just sink, because I've been there. I know what this meant. The whining. The negotiating the battle to even get the boots on and get up, like it was just so overwhelming. And I'm standing here thinking, why is this so hard? I am the one out there giving tips to everyone on how to get their kids excited to ski, and I can't even get all of mine out the door. Now, if you've been there before, you've had that moment where your child just refuses to ski, I want you to know something important. You are not alone. But this is fixable, and today I'm gonna walk you through exactly what to do when your child refuses to ski. This is the step-by-step rescue plan that has worked for my own kids over and over again, and also for hundreds of other families that I have helped. Now let's dive in. Now before we get into how to the how to fix it part, we need to understand the why because here's the thing. When your kid says, I don't wanna ski, they're not trying to ruin your day, they're not being difficult just to be difficult. Well, usually, um, they're communicating something right. And our job as parents is to figure out what that something is. Now, in my experience, kids refuse to ski for a couple of main reasons. Now, the first off is be reason is because they're scared. Maybe they had a bad experience. Maybe they fell and got hurt. Maybe they fell out of control, or they went on a run that was too hard and they just couldn't handle it. Fear, it's, it's real, right? And it's valid. Uh, the second reason why kids don't wanna ski is because they're frustrated. Maybe skiing feels too hard. Maybe they see their friends progressing faster and they feel like they're failing. We've been there a lot. Or maybe they're stuck in a wedge and they can't figure out how to turn, and it's just becoming too much for 'em. Now the third reason why kids refuse to ski is because they feel powerless. This is the one that I think is, uh, happens more often than not. Um, think about it from your kid's perspective. Mom and dad decided that they're going skiing. They picked the mountain, they picked the runs. Mom and dad decide how long we're staying, and the kid has zero control over any of it. And sometimes they're just tired or cold, or they'd rather just be doing something else. And all of those, every single one is a valid reason. None of 'em makes your kid bad at skiing, or it doesn't mean that they're never gonna love it, but here's what I've learned. Once you can turn things fun again, most kids completely are changing their attitude about skiing. Now the key is figuring out what their roadblock is, and then you're going to address it. Now step one, I want you to talk to your kid. Like really talk. Your kid says they don't wanna ski. Your first instinct is probably gonna be to push through. I know mine is, come on guys, we drove all the way here. Just give it a try. Or maybe you're gonna bribe 'em. If you ski for an hour, we'll go get some hot chocolate. I get it you guys. I've been there so many times, I've got five kids, but here's what actually works. Okay? You stop. You sit down and you really talk to them. Now, don't do this in the car on the way to the mountain, not when you're buckling boots in the parking lot. Do it somewhere quiet, maybe the night before, maybe at breakfast, and you ask open-ended questions. What is it about skiing that doesn't feel good right now? Or is there something that happened last time that's making you not wanna go? Or you could try. What would make skiing more fun for you? And then you guys, this is the really hard part. As parents, you listen, you don't interrupt, you don't try and problem solve right away. You just listen because your kid needs to feel heard. They need to know their opinion matters. You guys, I have had this conversation with my own kids multiple times and every time what they tell me. Really surprises me. One of my kids said that they didn't wanna ski because the chairlift scared 'em, not the actual skiing. It was the chairlift. Once I knew that we could work with it and move forward. Another one told me that they felt embarrassed because they knew we were skiing with some friends and their friend was a better skier. Now, that's not something I would've guessed on my own because they loved hanging out together. Another one of my kids told me that. Um, he knew we were going skiing, but a kid in their class was having a birthday party and they really wanted to go but didn't wanna disappoint the rest of our family. You guys, you cannot fix a problem that you don't understand. So start there. Talk to your kid and really listen. Okay. Step number two, you are going to give them some control. Here's something that I have learned over the two decades of teaching kids to ski. Your kids are going to resist. They're gonna push back when they feel powerless and they engage when they feel like they have some skin in the game, when they have some say. So after you've talked and figured it out, what the roadblock is, give them some choices. Not unlimited choices. I mean, you are still the parent, but real actual choices within some boundaries. For example, hey, we're gonna go skiing this week. Do you wanna go Friday or do you wanna go Saturday? Or, okay, we're gonna go skiing this morning. Do, would you rather start on the bunny hill or the magic carpet? Or, okay, we're gonna go ski three runs and then we're gonna take a break. Would you like hot chocolate at our break or a snack? Now notice what's happening here. You're not asking if they wanna ski. You're giving them control over how the day rolls. And you guys, this really makes such a difference. I've also learned to compromise, and I think that that is really important. Maybe you're planning to ski every single weekend for a month, but your kid feels burned out. So you compromise, okay, let's ski two weekends this month instead of four. But on those days, we are going to make it so fun and it is really gonna count. Or maybe you're planning a full day of skiing and your kid's overwhelmed so you compromise. Hey, let's do a half day, we'll ski in the morning and then we'll go do something else you wanna do in the afternoon. Helping your child feel like they have some say that their opinion actually matters in your family. Really changes everything with the dynamics because now they're not being forced to ski. They are choosing to participate and in what ways, and that shift makes a huge difference. Okay? Step number three is you need to make it fun again. Oh my gosh. This is at the core of what I love about skiing. You've talked to your kids, you've given 'em control, but the thing that will make them wanna go is making it fun. Because here's the truth, if skiing feels like a chore. Your kid's never gonna love it, but if it feels like a play, like play, like a game, everything changes. So how do you make it fun? First turn everything into games. Okay? So instead of saying, Hey, let's work on your pizza, you're gonna say, I wanna have a competition with you to see who can make the biggest, slowest pizza in the entire world with 100 toppings on it. Okay? Or, okay, I'm gonna make a line right here. Now, here's a challenge for you. Can you stop right on that line? Like exactly on it? If you can. I've got a gummy bear for you, or, okay, we're gonna race to that sign. But in slow motion, the slowest person to get there wins. But you're not allowed to stop. Now, second, you're gonna let them lead sometimes because when you're like directly teaching your kid and you are trying to model something, you want them to follow you. But when you're practicing, letting them lead is so, so, so beneficial. So you're gonna say, Hey, I want you to pick the next run. Where do you wanna go? Even if they pick the bunny hill or a run that you have literally skied 10 times in a row. Let them, because when they're leading, they're engaged. Let them go first. Let them do all the funny little side hits. Let 'em have fun. Now, third, build in some rewards. And you guys, it's gotta go beyond the hot chocolate level though. That works too. And I would never recommend skiing with kids without hot chocolate. Maybe it's okay. After three runs we're gonna take our skis off and we are gonna build a snowman. Or, um, if you try one of these new things today, we're gonna go to your favorite restaurant on the way home, which, let's be honest, parents is a huge win for you because no ski parent wants to go home and cook dinner because we are exhausted at the end of the day. Okay? Figure out what's gonna motivate your kid and use it now. Fourth, ski with their friends, you guys, this is gold. Kids will do things with their friends that they would never do alone, and they're gonna do it with a better attitude. If your kid has a friend who skis, invite them. Suddenly skiing isn't overwhelming and scary. It's a play date. Fifth, celebrate all the wins. Even the silly little ones, they made it down the bunny hill without falling. Celebrate. They tried the chairlift even though they were scared. Celebrate, they skied one more run than they did last time. Celebrate you guys. Your kids need to feel successful. And when they do, they want to keep going. We all love to be praised. I've seen this work over and over. A kid who was refusing to ski suddenly can't wait to get out again because it is fun. They feel like they're making progress now. Step number four, gosh, I wish that this is something that more parents understood. Sometimes the best thing you can do. You just gotta call it a day, okay? You've tried everything. Your kid is still melting down and forcing it is not gonna help. It is just gonna create a bad association with skiing, and that is the number one thing we do not want to do. So you say, okay, we're done for the day. We're gonna go get lunch. We'll try again another time. You guys, that's not giving up. That is being smart because skiing is supposed to be fun. And if it's not fun, you're doing something wrong. Guys, I have cut ski days short with my own kids more times than I can count. In fact, here's the truth, we almost never ski a full day, okay? We've got a lot of schedules, we've got a lot of personalities. We've got a lot of things going on. But guess what? The kids always wanna come back. We don't force it. We try and be flexible. We work with what they wanna do because skiing is really important to them, to us, and we want it to be important to them. We don't want them to hate it because there's always another day. There's always another opportunity. We're protecting the long game as parents. Don't sacrifice your kids' love of skiing just to get through one day. Now, let me tell you how that story that I started with ended. My kid who didn't wanna ski, we sat down, we talked, and he told me that he'd been invited to go hang out with some friends later that afternoon. He hadn't told me, so I really had no idea. So we made a plan, okay? Hanging out with his friends was really important, so we would get up to the mountain as soon as we could. We were leaving fast. But we had to have everyone loaded up and in the car by 1:00 PM It was non-negotiable for him. And you know what happened? As soon as I gave him some control, he was so happy to go and we actually had a blast. You guys, that's the power of listening, of giving them control, of making it fun. Your kid refusing to ski isn't the end of the story. In fact, it's a really good opportunity to connect with them. To understand them and to help them fall in, fall in love with skiing on their own terms, because that is really what we're going for as parents here. Now, if this episode resonated with you, if you're dealing with a child who's hard, they're resistant or scared, or maybe they're just not enjoying skiing yet. You guys, you are not alone and you do not have to figure this, this out by yourself. This is exactly why I created the course. First Tracks a Parent's Guide to Teaching Kids to Ski Inside. I'm gonna walk you through the exact progressions, the emotional barriers that kids are facing, and how to prevent fear before it starts, and how to turn even the most reluctant skier into the kid who begs to go back to the mountain. Okay. Inside First Tracks, you're gonna get step-by-step guidance for every stage of skiing from that very first day on the snow through confident, independent skiing. And as a parent, you're gonna learn how to handle the hard moments, just like the one we talked about today when your kid refused to ski. Because every parent I've worked with has hit major roadblocks like this, but the ones who come out on the other side, who have kids who end up loving skiing. They're the ones who have a plan. You can grab first tracks at the link in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here, and I'll see you out on the mountain.