Are you a parent of special needs child? Looking for a Lake Tahoe family ski vacation your whole family can enjoy? How about an adaptive ski lesson?
If you’re like most parents with a child with autism, Down’s syndrome, cerebral palsy, and other genetic, developmental or neurological conditions, you may not have heard about adaptive skiing before. I wrote this blog for you!
As an adaptive ski instructor who has also worked as a movement therapist for special needs children, I am continually amazed at what a great experience skiing is for my students. I watch children enjoy the snow, meet new challenges, and use adaptive equipment to experience a truly wonderful sport. I also see them learn, in so many ways. I watch parents excited to learn new ways to interact with their child and find new possibilities.
I hope this website can provide you loads of information. If you want, sign up to this blog, because as the year progresses, I will be including photos, and hopefully parents will add comments (as I figure out how to work this blog). You can also email me photos to post or put up any questions you want.
Beware: if your child goes skiing, they may talk about it for the rest of the year!
Look forwards to meeting you!
Eveline Wu
PSIA Certified Adaptive Ski Instructor, Heavenly Resort
Certified Feldenkrais Neuromuscular Reeducation Practitioner
Certified in the Anat Baniel Method for Children
B.A. UC Berkeley
Disclaimer: I’m writing this blog on my own intiative because of my enthusiasm for adaptive teaching, to help you have resources when considering adaptive skiing for your child. This blog does not represent the official views of Heavenly Resort, nor am I writing it as officially representing the resort.
We are from San Jose, California. Our 4 year old son spent three days under the guidance of Eveline at Heavenly. It was a pure lucky coincidence that we were assigned Eveline as our son’s ski instructor.
Our son is autistic and we were not sure he would be able to handle all that skiing involves and we were wrong (I am so happy to say)!
Eveline was patient, loving and an AMAZING teacher. Our son went from scared to skiing in three days. While the first day was not easy (our son cried and demanded the skis OFF!) she kept with him and patiently worked through his small tantrums and eventually coaxed the skis back on him.
Eveline understands what a child on the spectrum deals with and we did not have to explain in advance his issues – she already had a good understanding of ASD.
It is important to point out that the lessons for your child cost the same as if they were in a group lesson – but they have private one on one time instead because our special needs children cannot learn in the same group environment as others. I was so thankful that this was available at that cost.
Day #3 of our son’s ski lessons with Eveline brought tears to my eyes as I watched our son and Eveline take a chair lift together to the top of the hill and then my son skied down the hill towards me. It was a life defining moment for me – he CAN do it! It felt great and there were cheers all around for a job well done. I will always remember that day.
We are a family of skiers (and snowboarders) and we will plan our trips around Heavenly and Eveline’s availability to work with our son. I cannot say enough about how wonderful she is!!!
We took our two boys to Heavenly skiing for their first time over the ski week break. Our 7 year old is on the autism spectrum so I was delighted to see that Heavenly had a program to provide him one on one tuition at a reasonable price, unlike so many places where we always have to pay 2xs as much. Our younger son went to regular ski school. We were delighted to see how Eveline connected with Michael so quickly and were amazed on the second day when we went over to the novice area early with the thought we’d go and watch him in the Enchanted forest, to find him coming down the ‘Firstride’ ski run with Eveline skiing backwards in front of him. It reminded me of when I learned as a young adult 20 years ago! He then insisted in me riding up the lift with me and I was amazed how confident and enthusiastic he was. It really gave me the feeling that we would be able to ski as a family, when a couple of years ago I thought that dream would never be fulfilled.
Unfortunately, we were only able to ski for 2 days due to the weather but we will be back soon and very much look forward to Eveline coaching Michael into a competent skier, now we just have to get his brother up to his level!
Thank you Eveline for the wonderful work you are doing to for our kids! It’s people like you who make a huge difference.
Our 6 year old son, Jimmy, is PDD-NOS. We were lucky enough to find Eveline. He loved skiing with her for five, solid half-days. Just like the other parents who have posted their thoughts, we feel Eveline is awesome dealing with children in the Autism Spectrum. My husband lovingly baptized her as “Dr. Wu” from the Steely Dan song. My son very quickly took to Eveline’s new honorary degree, as conferred by my husband, calling Eveline Dr. Wu every chance he got.
We are fortunate to own a timeshare here at Heavenly and come every year in the Spring. Although is a long way away from our home in Puerto Rico, we have yet another reason to look forward to our yearly, skiing pilgrimage, now that Eveline has befriended our son. Thanks for making a difference in our son’s life!
We’re also a family from San Jose and just got back from a weekend at Heavenly that included a half day lesson for our two girls (one ADD and ASD) with Eveline. My ASD daughter summed it up her preference for Eveline over other instructors this way; “Eveline is more informative.” She said the other instructors would tell her what *not* to do, but Eveline told her what to do or how to change.
Though this was our first experience with Eveline, we have had a couple other adaptive lessons at Heavenly this year. I can’t say enough about how positive an experience it has been. We found out about the program from a particularly frustrated “regular” kids’ ski instructor who really didn’t know how to reach or work with my daughter.
In the adaptive lesson environment, the instructors have taken on much more responsibility for understanding my daughter’s challenges and trying to mitigate them where possible, or work around or with them when it’s not. Eveline, in particular, really seems to understand the physical movement and coordination issues that can go along with a neurological difference.
Best of all, both kids had tons of fun and are delighted to know Eveline.