Kid's ski lessons

I was just wondering, are levels for ski lessons relatively consistant? For example, if my daughter is a level 6 at Solitude, is that what I should sign her up for in Whistler? (I do realize smaller resorts, such as those in Michigan, may have different standards. But, I was thinking of the "big ones" out west.)

How often do you think you should put kids in lessons? We like to ski with our kids, therefore, I was thinking of lessons for 2 of the 6 days?

Thanks for any input!

Levels should be consistent from resort to resort...that's why PSIA developed the standard.

That said, alot depends on the resort, the ski school, and the instructor. Beauty is still in the eye of the beholder and many instructors just don't have a good handle on exactly which skills are necessary to move to a different level. This can be frustrating, especially for children. My advice is to tell the ski school staff which level your kids are...it's up to a good ski school to gather all kids who say they are at that level and then ski them off to determine 2 or 3 well matched groups.

As for frequency of lesson, that depends on alot of factors. They may love/hate the class or the instructor. The weather may be comfortable or brutal. Or the kids may want to ski/get away from Mom and Dad. I ask my kids what they want to do and go with what they tell me...they're good enough now to follow me almost anywhere at a resort anyway.

How often to do kids lessons depends on many factors: attitude and ability of both kid and parent, where you're skiing ,etc.

One extreme is our Iron Blosam timeshare group at Snowbird. Kids take lessons full time until age 13 unless they reach level 9 earlier. This works for that group because of the nature of Snowbird's terrain, quality of intruction, and that it's a consistent rule that has applied over 20+ years to a whole generation of kids. On his first trip with this group Adam was age 11 and level 9 but requested to take one lesson per trip with the other level 9 kids.

The other extreme is best illustrated by JSpin and his son Ty. Do it yourself works best in this instance because:
1) The kid is eager.
2) The parent is well qualified to instruct.
2) The kid is very young, and in this cooperative arrangement his time on the snow is typically not a full day.

Both of the above situations are demonstrably successful. Each family should make an honest assessment or their situation (which may vary by local vs. destination resort for example) and act accordingly.