Last Updated31 May 2022

Teaching Children explores how lessons will change when teaching children, as one of the major groups of people we teach in snowboarding. We may have different ideas on how to interact with children, because at one time we were all kids ourselves. This chapter presents specific tools, tactics and considerations for teaching and interacting with children.

Profiling Children

Creating a profile of a child helps the instructor to develop an understanding of who they are. This is done best through effective and purposeful questioning, listening and further questioning in the form of a conversation. It is also possible to gain an understanding of children through observing the way they move, their body language and the equipment they have.

The process of creating a profile is predominantly done through good questioning. It should be an ongoing process throughout the lesson or the duration spent with the student. Question topics may include, but are not limited to: age, interests and hobbies, sports, favourite subjects at school, family, where they are from, what they want to do in the lesson, and their favourite place to ride.

Listening carefully to the answers allows the instructor to gain vital information on how to effectively communicate with the student, through the vocabulary they use and the answers they provide. Information can then be delivered in a way that the child will understand, using similar vocabulary and relating the content to things that they are familiar with and like to do.

Example

Example conversation for profiling...

Instructor: “Jonny, do you enjoy doing any other sports?”
Child: “Yes.”

Instructor: “What’s your favourite sport to play?”
Child: “Soccer.”

Instructor: “What is your favourite thing about soccer?”
Child: “Playing with my friends and scoring goals.”

Instructor: “I like scoring goals too! How did you score your last goal?”
Child: “I jumped up and did a header and it went over the keeper.”

Instructor: “Cool, did you win that game Jonny?”
Child: “Yep, we won 3-2. I was really happy.”

The more questions we ask the more we learn about the child. If we stopped at the first or second question it would not have given us very much to work with. The student should also start to feel comfortable around you because you are showing a genuine interest in them.

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