6 Tips for Paddleboarding with Children

Paddleboarding with kids can be a lovely way to spend some quality time as a family.  It can also be hideous (and I speak from experience!) if you forget the snacks!  As a water sport, stand-up paddleboarding is quite safe. But where water is involved, it’s never going to be completely risk free so here are my 6 tips for paddleboarding with children to ensure that everyone has a good time.

Location, location, location

Choose where you launch and paddle carefully.  Some kids will be proper little water babies and very confident on and in the water.  Others will be more wary.  Either way, I would still recommend choosing an easy paddle, somewhere without strong currents and big waves. 

We’ve been on lochs and rivers when the wind has changed and suddenly your gentle paddle becomes a full body workout! We tend to opt for more sheltered spots now on local rivers, or canals, which are also very easy going.

Make sure they’re supervised

We have a couple of boards and two kayaks between us.  Sometimes we each take a craft and mix and match, sometimes we just go on the SUPs.  My husband and I take a child each and off we go!  They’re often content to sit or lie on the front and wave at people on the river bank, or spot fish in the water. 

Generally, they will both take a turn paddling too.  But they’re too young to go out on their own and either I or my husband is always with a couple of metres of them in case something unexpected happens. Or they just get bored!

Wear the safety gear

The kids always wear a PFD (Personal Flotation Device) or a buoyancy aid.  The rule is simple: no PFD, no paddle.  And that includes being paddled.  On the gentler paddles with the children, I don’t tend to wear a PFD – I use the SUP leash so I’m always connected to the board, and that would double as my buoyancy aid.  However, if one of the kids is paddling the board on their own, they take the leash too so that if they fall in, they don’t lose the board.

Wear sunscreen

Even on the days when it’s ‘not that sunny,’ the sun’s rays are still harmful and people do burn through cloud.  Rays are also reflected off the water, so you might find that areas of skin that are usually in shade are being by reflections.  Backs of knees are really sore if they burn, believe me!

Bring the snacks!

We’re pretty good these days at all bringing our own water.  We have countless water bottles in the house so there really is no excuse.  My children don’t seem to be able to go more than an hour – two at a real push – without eating.  They burn off the energy, but the rate at which they shovel down the snacks is quite something!  I’ve considered cutting down the on-board snacks, even did it once. Never again!

Being stuck in the middle of a river with a whiny child complaining that they’re wasting away before my eyes because they’re so hungry is horrific.  There are few things that can ruin a paddle for me, but that’s by far the quickest!

Safety drills

We’ve had the kids in the water since they were very small.  They’re confident swimmers.  Even so, we practice safety drills with them so they know what to do if something did go wrong.  We think we’ve got the balance right; I don’t want to go on about safety so much that they worry they’re doing something really dangerous and don’t want to come any more, but equally I want them to react instinctively. 

We’ll often play with the boards once the ‘official’ paddle is over.  We’ll see if we can shake each other off, we jump up and down on the boards so inevitably we fall in.  We do races from falling in to see who can get under the board and back on it again first. That sort of thing.  They know which way round to hold the paddle, but once in a while they forget, so it’s always worth running through proper paddling technique before you set out.

I’m sure there are others but those are my first 6 tips for paddleboarding with children.  Do you agree? What have I missed?  But trust me on the sunscreen.