how young is too young to surf?

[marcus]

My little girl is due in december, and i cant wait to teach her about about swimming, the water, starfish and all that.
but what i really want to do one day is teach her to stand up on a surfboard like Steve shearer did in this vid.
i know it will be a few years off yet, but my mum taught me to swim on swimming lessons at 6 months then onto Coogee rock pools baby pool.

any of you guys / girls teaching your kids to swim / surf yet?

i jokingly say to the wife im going to get a baby seat for my fishing kayak.

sorry this is so old, but its beautiful
http://vimeo.com/3843655

[Kunji]

Get her on a bodyboard asap. Make a harnesss and start pulling into some small closeouts with her on your back. That's what im going to do.

[Grooter]

My daughter is 3 now, but I reckon she is still too young even though she already shows a pretty keen interest in it - mainly I reckon because daddy does it and she wants to join in the fun

I'm going to wait till she is at least 5 and is comfortable in the water at the beach, as it is vastly different to a pool i.e. it's moving and that can sometimes scare them. I'll probably get her one of those big soft foamies, we were in a surf shop the other day and she ran straight over to a bright pink one and asked me to buy it for her!

[Shoulder hopper]

Good vid of the young Shearer, only trouble is the way he got her standing the wrong way round. Get her to be natural foot before it's too late and she is destined to a life of chasing left handers!

But onto the subject at hand, I started pushing my young daughter into waves on a booger when she was 3 and she loved every minute of it.Even sometimes when she got dumped off, I'd be thinking she would be crying but no, she'd be laughing her head off and some times I'd have to pull he up to the surface by her hair when she made me take her out past where she could stand!
The missus would give me shiit for it though.
Then when she got bigger I'd push her in on an old 7ft board I had but by then she was going to swimming lessons so I wasn't as worried about her drowning when she fell off.

By the time she was 8 she could catch waves for herself and get out the back on small days and do a few turns and ride them to the beach.
She still surfs most days now and is 15 but surfs with the boys as surfing with dad is not as cool anymore. In fact she probably surfs better than dad does nowdays and goes out in bigger surf too but I can still stich her up when it gets really hollow.

Probably the best piece of advice I can give you is make sure she is a strong swimmer as that will give her heaps of confidence in the surf and don't make her surf waves that she is scared in when she is young. That can come as she gets older and better, then you can get her to be out of the comfort zone a bit and her surfing will progress in leaps and bounds. I've found that girls take a bit more coaxing to get out of their comfort zone but you need to do it if they want to surf better waves in bigger conditions. Boys just push each other and peir group pressure tends to progress them faster than girls do.

What ever you do, just enjoy being there for them as they will be grown up before you know it and surfing with them will be a memory but a great memory! SH

[mustkillmulloway]

i don't encourage my kids surf at all

as a parent your influence is eva lasting, just living with me they are over exposed too surfing

pushing kids achieve what u wanted achieve is a trap i have avoided

said that...one my daughters surfs....her choice, a natural footer to my disgust

the thing is...@ age ten...SHE decided she wanted surf

basicly....out my control

[Damage]

^and that's why I tolerate him.

[dUg]

My little girl is due in december, and i cant wait to teach her about about swimming, the water, starfish and all that.
but what i really want to do one day is teach her to stand up on a surfboard like Steve shearer did in this vid.
i know it will be a few years off yet, but my mum taught me to swim on swimming lessons at 6 months then onto Coogee rock pools baby pool.

any of you guys / girls teaching your kids to swim / surf yet?

i jokingly say to the wife im going to get a baby seat for my fishing kayak.

sorry this is so old, but its beautiful
http://vimeo.com/3843655

I'd not seen that video. Made me smile.

My little guy has been in the pool since 6 months, he's almost 2 now. Sleep issues have really slowed his advance through the ranks at swim school but he has the familiarity with being underwater etc. and loves the water. Loves the sea water as well but it's the cold temperature that he struggled with last summer. I've seen these strap things you can buy for getting kids to stand up on a board, looks like it's worth a shot. I think he'll have the balance by 3 years but it'll be the other things like confidence in moving water ( and probably his mum ) that determine how early he stands up on a board. That's assuming he's interested... he won't be pushed into it.

[jimmy]

Quote from Woolly...

"Coops has the right idea for initial surfcraft. A boogie board is perfect."

That's gold!

[lovenutz]

Get her on a bodyboard asap. Make a harnesss and start pulling into some small closeouts with her on your back. That's what im going to do.

Gonna get them to progress to standing up or keep on the booger? serious question.

[Beanpole]

When my young fella was really little I used to strap a wrist strap on for the boogie board on my wrist and get him to hold my hand and stand on the lid. I'd let the water lift him up a bit and give him a bit of a skimboard ride as the waves came in. You could usually stop him from getting skittled and even pull off a re-entry occasionally. That was fun and started a pattern of doing stupid stuff at the beach which continues to the present.

Depends on the kid though. His sister has been to surf school etc, and never bothers to paddle out. If she does she just floats around and doesn't try to catch waves much at all. Thats okay by me too. As long as its all fun its all good.

[marcus]

Get her on a bodyboard asap. Make a harnesss and start pulling into some small closeouts with her on your back. That's what im going to do.

Gonna get them to progress to standing up or keep on the booger? serious question.

if the question is for me? um, not sure, what ever they choose, but id hope that my kids will be able to ride any board they decide to ride.
if she wants to ride a boogie board, id still take her out for rides on my mal.
but i guess ill just wait and see.

I've said this in an old thread, but i made the mistake with my youngest brother. at the age of ten we put a gath helmet on him and took him out 2-3 foot face low tide island and pushed him into waves.
he preferred to sit on the island and watch his older brothers get tubed.
maybe it was also how strict i was when we went into the point.
i made a point of telling him to stay out of the way of older waxheads and boogieboarders, and to paddle out on the shoulder etc etc, not drop in etc etc, and i think he went, fark that. ill be a skateboarder. and he became a pretty good sponsored one for a while.
that was about 20 years ago
now he is back on shortboards that matt and i have hand me downed to him, but he doesn't take it seriously, just some fun.

[Kunji]

Get her on a bodyboard asap. Make a harnesss and start pulling into some small closeouts with her on your back. That's what im going to do.

Gonna get them to progress to standing up or keep on the booger? serious question.

I would encourage the continual use of a bodyboard, of course. Stand up boards are more of a lateral step, not a progressive one.

[diggerdickson]

My boy is 5, cant swim well enough yet and have promised him a surfboard when he can swim really well, he is so keen its a bit scary, Ive got a 6'3 surfboard ive shaped but not glassed, gonna cut it down to 5 or odd foot and give it to him, he wants flames down the sides

I aim to take him to to noosa on a small day and push him into tiny white wash just to hang out with him at the beach. I dont care if he takes up surfing. I just want to hang with him, if he takes up surfing that will be awesome and i intend to get good enough to always make him boards, if he takes up boogie boarding I will just shoot myself MMMM I shouldnt say that, I can see myself in 4 years riding boogie boards with noah because he dont wanna ride a surfboard:lol:

[Beanpole]

I surf anything I can these days with junior. Lid in the flags, no worries. I mean how easy is it to get a little barrel lying down. Softboards, normal boards, mals. Its all part of the fun isn't it?

[hamish]

My eldest has been on mats on the shorey for the last coupla years. She's 6 and last week asked me quietly if she could learn to surf this summer. I never pushed for it but just waited for her to come around.

[diggerdickson]

My eldest has been on mats on the shorey for the last coupla years. She's 6 and last week asked me quietly if she could learn to surf this summer. I never pushed for it but just waited for her to come around.

this is a awesome post, I hope this is the way my boy goes, though at the moment he is hanging for his own board, but will probably only use it a main beach noosa to lie on in the whitewash on a small day so I dont push him or scare him in any way, shape or form

[daryl]

Dunno about surf, but when I was 12 used to babysit the next door kids, from babies to bit bigger. One jumped in the pool and sank, pulled him up, but there was no coughing or anything, I reckon the instincts are not to breathe, but they don't have the stroke bit

[marcus]

just purchased a type 1 life jacket for the 1 year old, shes going to be my tow partner at chopes.
seriously though, we got it for kayaking accross a river to our fav picnic spot.
The swimming lessons are going well, and she understands when to duckdive under the water when a wave comes when we go swimming in the surf.
teaching her in the bath has really helped.
absolutely loves the water, and points to the waves when we explore the rock pools