Teaching Your Kid To Wakesurf

Sharing your passion for wakesurfing can be a special time for you and your child. But, if you are not really sure where to start, you are not alone. So many of us have been wakesurfing for so many years or didn’t start as children ourselves that imparting this knowledge onto a little one can be difficult to grasp.

We did some research ourselves to work out what is the best way to teach your kid to wakesurf and this is what we found out.

1. Don’t use an adult board. The first thing to note is that you really shouldn’t use an adult board to teach your kid wakesurfing. Instead, you need to focus on getting a wakesurf board that is designed for kids. This will set your kid up for success with wakesurfing, rather than giving them the obstacle of dealing with a board that is way too big. You can look for a list of the best wakesurf boards online and see which one would be most appropriate for your child.

2. Consider the buoyancy. A thought that many parents overlook at first is how buoyant is the board that you are looking at. Too often, we see children struggling to learn, because the board that they have is too buoyant relative to their size. While this can happen when a child is using an adult board, as we mentioned above, this can also happen when a child is simply too light for the board that they are using. Pay attention to the size chart that is supplied with the board that you are looking at so that you can set your child up for success on the water rather than failure. Sometimes this happens if a younger sibling is using the same board as an older sibling. While this might save you money, it will also delay the younger child’s progress in the sport as they are too light to have any balance or control over the board.

3. Give them useful tips. There are a few useful tips that will serve your child well when working on the sport. Some great wisdom to impart includes:
a. Keep your arms straight and don’t lock your knees.
b. When the boat speeds up, kick your heels down.
c. Your heels should be at the back of the board.
d. When starting, make sure that your back foot is as far back on the board as it can go and the other foot should be about a shoulder’s width away from it.

4. Use the back of the boat. It is a good idea to teach your child how to get up on a wakeboard first. To do this, you will need to use the back of the boat to practice.

5. Safety is really important. Safety should be your number one priority. There are many safety elements to consider, the first one being that your kid needs a life jacket that actually fits. Do not try to save money and use an adult one. If the jacket is too big, it can slip right over your child’s head when they fall in the water, doing nothing. Additionally, you should teach your child to hold the board up in the air when they fall in the water. Children are not easy to see out in the water, so waving a board around will make it much easier to spot them when they have fallen off. And always assume your child is going to fall off, because they will not learn if they never fall off and, inevitably, your child is going to fall off. It’s just how wakesurfing works.

6. Teach your kid what to do when the boat approaches. There are a lot of scenarios that your child will need to learn in order to safely navigate the sport, and boats are another concern. If a wave or the wind pushes the boat toward your child, they might flip out. Instead, they should learn to remain calm and gently push off of the side of the boat.

7. Have fun! Perhaps the most important tip that we can give you is to make sure that your child is having fun. Do not take teaching them so seriously that the entire process becomes riddled with anxiety. It will not only discourage your child from successfully wakesurfing, but likely will make them not enjoy the sport either. It might be that as a parent, you are not the right person to teach your child to wakesurf. It is not uncommon to need to use an outside person or coach to help start your child out.

Now that you know what to do, the first stop you make should be to a website to find out the right wakesurfing boards for your child.