Teaching resilience at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center
By Ryan Krueger
Originally published in Montana Parent, March 2023 PDF
As parents, we often try to protect our kids from any form of danger or adversity. While this is a natural instinct, it can lead to our children missing out on valuable learning experiences that come from taking controlled risks and facing challenges. These experiences provide kids with opportunities to develop important life skills such as resilience, determination, and problem-solving.
It turns out, exposing children to challenging experiences and calculated risks in safe and controlled environments may be one of the most important things we can do for our children’s emotional growth and development. By encountering controlled risks in a supportive environment, kids can become more resilient and learn to respond to life’s hiccups and difficulties. Nurturing the skills and confidence to handle difficult and diverse situations now will have positive ripple effects throughout their lifetimes.
One of the ways that kids can experience controlled adversity and beneficial risk is through participation in sports programs with experienced coaches and mentors. At Crosscut Mountain Sports Center in Bridger Canyon, biathlon and mountain bike programs provide kids with a safe and fun environment to challenge themselves and push their limits. While risk will always be part of the equation, through thoughtful leadership, our children can learn these important lessons in safe, controlled environments.
“We create a safe container for progressively appropriate risk, where participants start to identify what is a healthy risk vs. unhealthy risk. What obstacles—corners, jumps, climbs and descents, for example—am I ready for? How do I know? Cultivating this self-awareness in a camp or on a team leads to individual and social growth,” said Heidi Makoutz, Director of Mountain Services at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center. “Healthy risk taking is part of becoming a better version of yourself.”
The biathlon program at Crosscut combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting, two activities that require focus, discipline, and determination. Participants learn how to balance their breathing and heartrate while shooting, how to control their nerves under pressure, and how to push themselves through physical activity. Experiencing a great skiing lap only to come into the range and miss multiple targets is an emotional letdown. With supportive coaching, youth athletes learn to accept and move quickly on from the disappointment, so it doesn’t negatively impact the next ski lap or shooting bout. Adversity on the range and trails helps kids to develop important life skills such as resilience, determination, and self-confidence.
Program Director, Seth Hubbard, instructs a young athlete at the Summer U12 Youth Biathlon Camp
“Sport allows you to be a part of something bigger than you—it allows you to make new friends and push your limits and teaches you how to persevere and come back from disappointment. It teaches resilience, tenacity, cooperation, patience, and so much more,” said Ann Sorenson, Biathlon Youth Coach at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center. “These are all qualities that benefit kids well beyond the bounds of the biathlon program.”
Similarly, the mountain bike programs that take place at Crosscut Mountain Sports Center — Crosscut’s camps for 4th-12th graders, Bozeman Youth Cycling (BYC) programs, and Montana Interscholastic Cycling League (MICL) team practices and competitive races—provide kids with the opportunity to push their limits in a safe and controlled environment. These programs teach kids about proper technique, balance, and bike handling, and then challenges them with progressively more difficult trails. Participants learn how to navigate obstacles, how to stay calm and focused under pressure, how to correct mistakes, and how to get outside of their comfort zones. All of these skills are transferable to other areas of life and can help kids to develop a growth mindset.
“We feel that by building bike handling skills and endurance, the kids build self-confidence. By conquering obstacles on the trails, the kids build confidence. By providing a structured and supportive environment, the kids can overcome the adversity of the trails, their bikes, their bodies, and even their minds,” said Molly Bowman, Executive Director of Bozeman Youth Cycling. “And the best part, these confident kids are kind and supportive of their teammates and they take it with them wherever they go.”
Director of Mountain Services, Heidi Makoutz instructs young mountain bikers at Captain Your Bike Camp for 4-8th graders
The experienced Crosscut, BYC, and MICL coaches provide a supportive and encouraging environment, helping participants to develop a love for these sports and gain self-confidence by taking controlled risks and facing challenges. They believe that their programs not only help kids to develop important life skills, but also foster a love for outdoor sports and a connection to nature.
These experiences of controlled challenges and calculated risks all help children and adolescents to develop a wealth of important skills that will serve them throughout their lifetimes. Whether they're skiing, biking, or just getting outside, these versatile and valuable skills and experiences apply to many other areas of life, helping them to become more confident, well-rounded, and successful individuals who are better equipped to handle life's challenges — to the benefit of themselves, and those around them.