How young is too young?

My six year old daughter has the confidence to try on our next trip to Don Pedro but I'm wondering if it's too early? She is a strong swimmer and last year she learned to turn over with the board on her feet. She just wouldn't hold on and go for a pull. Does anybody have any tips / tricks to help her get up? I have the book dvd series and have used their "getting started" techniques inside the house. At this point I make her yell "hit it" and I pull her up from the deep water start position and she easily stands and continues to slide acros the carpet with the board in the right position.

Thanks for your input

Get the proper life jacket and go for it. If you do I think you are a better parent then one that takes their 6 year old to McDonlads 3 times a week!

I talked to a guy whose wife went boarding w/ there 3yr old daughter.

my son is 3 and going to be riding this summer, same with my 6 year old daughter

My youngest son started at 5 years old, now he's 10 and can do a backroll. As long as the child wants to start you should never hold them back.

Supposedly Parks Bonifay holds the record for youngest person waterskiing - 6 months old. So 6 years old? Man, he should be pulling raleys by now!

Here is a link of a 7 year old girl hitting sliders.
http://www.wakepics.com/view_single.php/360-Picnic-Table_wakeboarding-photos.html?medid=18468

Peter- I actually think it is Dave Briscoe's son that holds the record.

at first i was scared to open this post by the title.....lol.....anyways, i know people who take their kids out wakeboarding pretty early...like the 3-5 range.

I call BS on any 6 month old water skiing. A 6 month old 1) can't even stand or walk yet 2) wouldn't undertstand the concept of holding the handle

I'm sure there's a ton more reasons why it's impossible.

My son started at 6 and is 8 now and my daughter hasn't gained enough confidence yet at age 6.

(Message edited by thug_hunter on June 10, 2006)

guinness book of world records... parks bonifay, 6 months, its true

I also think its bull on parks skiing at 6 months but my little girl is 6 months and stands with a perfect stance while holding a handle so I'm hoping to start her off real young. She has been going out on the boat for 3 months already and loves it.

I'll get her on a water toy next year when she is 18months and progress her on to skis/board when she is 2 1/2 - 3.

I has skiing at 4 and barefooting at 6 so I agree its best to start them as young as possible.

(Message edited by jayc on June 13, 2006)

My kids 5 and 8 have been livingroom wakeboarding and jumping on the trampoline with a handle for two years and finally last weekend got up.

They would go so far as to strap the board on but when they got in the water they didn't feel comfortable so we'd put up the board for another day and never pushed them.

My son who is 5 is progressing so fast(surface 180,olie and crossed one wake already). I guess the livingroom wakeboarding paid off once he got out there for real.

We had a 4 year old (not mine) on a wakeboard last season, he had no worries at all, loved it.

He had been on a snowboard 6 months before and is a little ripper on both.

He is a total grom at 5 now, and will probably be throwing scary tantrums at 8 or 9...and killing the best of us. Not sure if i will like him as much then...

BTW - he does come from a pedigree wake and snow family...

I was actually watching either 'Ripley's Believe It Or Not" or it was 'RealTV'...whichever it was, they had video of a 6 month old on video waterskiing and came from trick skiing background and his name was Parks Bonifay. They said he holds the guiness world record for the youngest skier, so unless it's been broken, then i guess he does hold the record. Here is a link to a profile on xgames...

X-Games profile:
http://expn.go.com/expn/summerx/2004/athleteBio?id=384

"...He is often called the "wonder boy" and rightly so since he is in the Guinness Book of Records as the youngest water skier ever at 6 months 29 days"

Sorry for all the info, just wanted to back it up so it wasn't another 'rumor'

Here's my son last year...he was 3.

I'm not 100% sure, so don't quote me, BUT, I'm about 85% sure that he had his hands friggin taped or tied to the handle when he was 6 months. I went to a Vans triple crown event in Pensacola about 6 years ago and they were handing out flyers with the picture of him skiing at 6 months.

Ya i think his skis were attached together or something like that...maybe hands, i dunno...

well the skis had the standard rope between them, holding them together like most beginner skis do, but I'm almost positive he had duct tape wrapped around his hands too.

Damn rem your kid is already calling for a Doubleup in the first pic at three..that rocks !

BTW Rem what board and bindings is he rocking there??

im thinking of gettiong my three year old nephew on somehting or at least in the water next season...

I believe rem made that board, there was a post about it earlier.

Yup...I just took an old board, trimmed it, re-shaped it a bit, sanded and painted it. I let the boy do the bottom graphics.

He was basically proped up in really shollow water, going really slow, and it looked pretty stable... its true.