{"id":20808,"date":"2019-08-14T17:00:34","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T00:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=20808"},"modified":"2022-01-06T09:22:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T17:22:38","slug":"a-groms-perspective-on-teaching-kids-to-kayak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2019\/08\/14\/a-groms-perspective-on-teaching-kids-to-kayak\/","title":{"rendered":"A Grom’s Perspective on Teaching Kids to Kayak"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have been fortunate to grow up in a kayaking family. In a previous life, my dad, Mike, was a kayak instructor at Idaho State University. When he first met my mom, Jody, he taught her how to kayak and they have loved kayaking together ever since. I\u2019m the youngest of three boys and we all love kayaking. We get asked a lot how Alec, Hayden, and I learned to kayak and what made us love it so much from such a young age. It all started with how we were introduced to the river.<\/p>\n

We were pretty much raised on the river. Every season, our parents would set up a basecamp in the Banks parking lot. We spent our early days playing in the water, building sandcastles, and throwing more rocks than you could imagine. My parents took turns paddling sections of the Payette River\u2014dad paddled the North Fork and my mom paddled the South Fork. Sometimes, if my grandma was there my parents would go together. After they put in their runs, we would pile into a raft and take a family trip down the Main Payette. Once us kids had transitioned into our own kayaks, we put-on the Lower Main for family laps.<\/p>\n