XC Skiing with Young Ones

Keeping a young child motivated and happy while you are out on a cross-country ski adventure is one part magic, one part bribery, one part distraction, and a whole lot of patience and encouragement. Young ones often bring great enthusiasm to a ski trip, usually very fired up to hit the trails and usually the first ones to race to some obvious landmark out on the trails. This enthusiasm often comes at a bit of a price as that burst of energy is often followed by, dare I say- whining about being tired or cold or hungry or some other reason to be not in the best of spirits.

It is easy at this point to get frustrated, and maybe even become discouraged and think the child doesn't really enjoy skiing. However, I would guess that it is just the natural order of events and the child just needs any one of a few tricks to keep them interested and motivated. I usually start with an attempt at distraction, "did you see that animal track?" or "did you hear that, I think I hear something just up the trail!" This will usually engage their curiosity and keep them going for a bit.

At the next whining point I will try distraction again, if that fails I usually move to a bribe of some sort. The bribes usually work like this, "at the NEXT stop we can have a snack, and at the stop after that we can have hot chocolate." Sometimes this works without much effort, other times I find I have to sell the value of the snack, which leads me to my tip of the day- don't skimp on the snack. I usually roll with some sort of fruit snack (the colored, gummy kind) and maybe a few cookies of a black and white variety.
I've tried to pass off healthier snacks, but I find I get more bang for the buck with the refined sugar snacks- I'm willing to trade the calories for a bit longer on the trails with the kids.

I'm also careful to bring along extra hats and gloves as well as socks just in case. It's amazing how easy it is to cure a case of cold feet by simply saying, "ok, I've got warm socks right here, let's swap them out." I can't tell you how often that simple phase seems to warm the young ones feet without me even pulling the socks form the bag.

Now the issue I find is that these techniques work for a bit, but the trick is to use them to get them out to the halfway point of a ski trek. At that time you can use the "almost there" technique to try to get them home with gusto. There are typically a few gripes on the way home, "are we there yet" being the most common. I do my best Ronald Regan and feign not hearing their gripes.

What I always find amazing is that despite the grumbles that I hear out on the trails their recollections of the trips are always positive and stories told with great pride. In fact you usually hear about how they can't wait until the next trip and how they want a friend to come along. Those stories always put a smile on my face, and I make sure that on my next grocery list that I have a few special snacks to make sure the trips go as planned.