I am actually a believer in competition. To me, pretty much the worst thing in the whole world (way above global thermonuclear war, the Ebola virus and people selling fake Air Jordans on eBay) is a sports day where the kids don’t actually race. However, when it comes to snowboarding, outright competition for groms just doesn’t feel right.

What is the best case scenario? That your child ends up a pro snowboarder? In other words, they end up poor and with a weird Euromerican accent.

What is the best case scenario? That your child ends up a pro snowboarder? In other words, they end up poor, with a weird Euromerican accent, spend most of their time in cheap hotels and getting pinged for overweight baggage before starting a snowboard-specific underwear company doomed to failure.

The worst case is that you turn something you used to love doing (but were never that great at) into the equivalent of high-stress piano lessons for your kids, and ensure that your holidays and leisure time descend into a series of technical drills which involve you crushing the creative force and joy out of your children in the pursuit of competitive snowboarding excellence (or more likely, typically British mediocrity).

“Hey Dad, it’s snowing really hard now, can we shred some pow?”
“No Jonny, you need to learn to pretzel out, we are not leaving the park until you have done five in a row so I know you’ve got it on lock.”

That sounds like fun doesn’t it?

Admittedly, for some kids, competing in snowboarding will be instinctive and even enjoyable. Some kids will get a kick out of winning or pushing themselves against people better than them – and without that vital competitive instinct we would never have had a Jenny Jones or a Jamie Nicholls to cheer on in the next ‘Lympics.

Competition isn’t inherently bad, but be careful not to trick yourself into thinking you are doing what is best for the kids when you slip a bib over their helmet then tell them to focus on getting their stock run in first to get a score on the board, when in fact they would rather be doing some colouring in.