How to Introduce Your Kids to Climbing
By: Alex Tzelnic
Tags: Sports, Family, Parenting, Kids, Climbing

How to Introduce Your Kids to Climbing

The American Alpine Club Shares Tips on How to Make Climbing Accessible Instead of Scary

Photo by Rahadiansyah on Unsplash

Climbing can be an intimidating sport to introduce your kids to. There is all that safety equipment, the heights, the danger! Perhaps it’s just for those hardcore families that grew up near rocks and seem to be born into a harness, right?

Wrong. The American Alpine Club has been in existence since 1902. Suffice it to say, they have a lot of experience introducing kids to the sport of climbing. As an organization that aims to protect our country’s wild landscapes and inspire the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts, they know a thing or two about alpine adventure. In the interest of gleaning some of that mountain wisdom I spoke with the AAC’s Education Manager, Ron Funderburke about the work that the organization does, and how parents might take on the seemingly daunting task of introducing children to the sport. To find out more about the AAC and see how they are addressing climbing in the COVID era, check out their website.

What advice would you give to parents who are looking to get their kids into climbing?

I would start off by reminding parents that we as climbers have acculturated different perceptions of success than non-climbers. In their own way, children are just frenetic non-climbers that we are inviting into our sport, our climbing community, and our culture. So, the invitation to join should be tailored to the non-climber’s frame of reference. If you were trying to convince your yoga instructor to try climbing, you might talk about how a good climb demands centered, balanced, and focused movement. If you were talking to your less active colleague, you might focus on the natural scenery and mention that climbing is a fun way to get in shape. If you’re talking to children, I’d strongly recommend you focus climbing as a form of play.

Don’t worry about redpoints, and onsights, and first ascents, or sport or trad or style, or any of that esoteric and confusing stuff. Not yet, any way. Focus on play. That means finding delight in every aspect of an outing. Finding cool animal signs, plants, and natural scenery on an approach. Find rocks to leap across and streams to splash. Appreciate that the jumping off of rocks and swinging on ropes can be just as fun as climbing them. Discard all your internalized notions about what makes climbing fun, and embrace the formless expectations of a child. Think of climbing as a form of play, and then go play.

Climbing can seem both intimidating and exclusive from the outside. How does the AAC help make it more accessible?

The AAC does a lot of things, but the one thing I’ll focus on is local programming and community at the chapter level. Your local AAC chapter is probably full of parents and children just like your family. The local chapter gives you an avenue to meet these families and go climbing with them. Your local chapter is either holding classes and clinics on taking kids climbing, or they help connect you to someone who is. Your local chapter can make an informed recommendation about a local guide or professional service that will help you and your kids get out there.

Is there any moment or story that sticks in your mind about a parent and child that were able to take on the sport of climbing together?

There are countless such stories, but I’ll focus on Michelle and Katie, a mother daughter duo that I met at the AAC International Climbers Meet in Yosemite Valley two years ago. Between the two of them, they had formed a close climbing bond, but they spent most of their climbing time in the gym, and they joined the International Climbers Meet to make their first of many subsequent forays into the outdoors. What a place to make a transition, too, Yosemite Valley of all places!

At first, there were some awkward adjustments: learning to climb on the smooth granite, learning to climb cracks, learning to climb trad and multipitch. But, through the International Climbers Meet classes and clinics, through the many relationships they forged with other participants from around the world, this mother daughter duo quickly learned that we’re all on the same journey together, whether we’ve been to Yosemite one time or one hundred times, and that’s true of every climbing place. It was pretty amazing to watch that partnership evolve from nervous first steps, to perfervid sessions on soaring cracks, to helping others get over their own barriers and anxieties.

I know Michelle might have envisioned the day she would climb with her daughter in Yosemite Valley, perhaps from the moment Katie was born. It must have seemed like an impossible puzzle. But the mystery of how and if that would come to pass was ultimately solved by Michelle’s willingness to play and not to pressure, to embrace a community of climbers as fellow caregivers, and the courage to share all that uncertainty with her daughter. And Katie ended up being the kind of person that we should all strive to be: curious, adventurous, and brave.