4 Ways to Stoke Kids’ Boating Enthusiasm During the Winter Months

[#1]

As if off-season boating withdrawal wasn’t bad enough, the combination of cold weather and school winter vacation can lead to a serious case of cabin fever in many households. This winter, why not take your kids’ pent-up energy and direct it toward learning new maritime skills, thereby stoking their enthusiasm for the season ahead? If cold-weather boating isn’t an option, here are four ideas that will help get visions of boating fun dancing in your children’s heads:

1) Instruct Them on Standing Up (on Water Skis): For watersports beginners, a dry run is actually an excellent way to get used to the feel of water skis—particularly when it comes to maintaining balance and transitioning from “sitting” to standing. And with the lure of open water absent, winter is a great time to build this framework. To get started, set up on your family room rug (or, if weather permits, your backyard), have your child put their feet in the bindings, and then instruct them to stand on the balls of the feet to get a sense for how proper positioning feels.

When the child is feeling more comfortable in their new “shoes,” have them crouch down in the “catcher’s position”—or, if that’s too difficult, on a chair—and grasp a tow handle while you hold the other end of the tow rope and gradually pull them up. This is a fun way to help them learn one of the toughest skills for beginners—getting up without face-planting—and ease frustration when they’re eventually out on the water. Once you’ve practiced getting up, you can also try pulling your child gently across the rug or grass to provide further opportunity to work on balance.

2) Teach Basic Navigation: You don’t have to be on the water to give your kids an introduction to some of the ins and outs of navigation. Take a compass or a GPS along on a car ride and let your child get a feel for how it works. Show them how to program in a waypoint and monitor your progress to your destination. Better yet, introduce them to the fun of geocaching and let them learn how to use a GPS while they hunt for hidden treasure. When the weather warms up, you can take your geocaching up a notch and incorporate it into your boating trips.

3) Practice Casting and Reeling in: Increase your kids’ comfort level with casting by heading to the backyard and setting up a mock fishing game. Place a target (bucket, old pair of jeans, plastic cone, etc.) about 10 to 20 feet from your child (depending on age and skill level), attach a small object to the end of the line, and have them practice casting to see how close they can get to the target before reeling in the line.

Younger/less experienced anglers can start by casting underhanded, while older/more experienced kids can opt to cast overhand (taking care to avoid trees, unsuspecting neighbors, etc.). When the time comes to head out on the boat, they’ll be better prepared to replicate the motion in a less familiar environment and with greater accuracy. (Get more tips for teaching kids fishing.)

4) Plan a Summer Vacation: Nothing beats the winter boating blues like planning a summer trip to a new destination. To get started, break out some maps for you and the kids to look over. Of course, Google Maps and countless other Internet sites are options, but for this exercise consider going old-school and bringing out an atlas, which you and your kids can pore over for hours looking for boating spots to visit.

With older children, once you’ve found a potential destination you can ask them to research the location and report back to you. If it looks like a winner, invite your kids to help plan out your itinerary—playing a role in what you’ll do will make them as excited about the trip as you. Depending on their age, you can give them fuller control of the planning reigns, even setting a budget for them to stay within. One tip: Reserve the right to veto any suggestions, because you never know what they might come up with—and that’s part of the fun.

When the weather outside is frightful, how do you help build anticipation for the delightful boating season ahead? Share your tips in the “Comments” section.