As winter settles in, many families jump into seasonal sports—skiing, skating, sledding, snowboarding, and more. And every year, parents tell us the same thing:
“My child struggles with sports during the rest of the year, but in the winter, they’re calmer, happier, and able to participate longer. What changed?”
At Great Kids Place, we explore these patterns through a Sensory Emotional Lens, examining how temperature, movement, pressure, speed, and unpredictability interact with a child’s sensory-emotional profile. When we understand those inner workings, winter becomes not just a season, but a rich opportunity to support growth, connection, and joy.
Why Winter Can Be So Regulating
Winter naturally provides sensory input that helps organize the nervous system:
- Cold temperatures reduce overheating and help many children stay alert and focused
- Fresh air offers a “reset” from indoor sensory clutter
- Snow and ice provide consistent resistance, deep pressure, and whole-body engagement
- Outdoor movement gives the brain powerful vestibular and proprioceptive input
This is why “getting outside” is often one of our go-to strategies when a child becomes dysregulated. Winter amplifies these benefits in a way many children simply do not experience during other seasons.
Sensory Emotional Personalities & Winter Sports
One of the most important reasons winter feels so different is that every child’s nervous system processes the world differently. In the Sensory-motor Emotional EngageMent Frame of Reference, we describe these differences as Sensory Emotional Personalities (SEPs)—patterns that help us understand what each child needs to feel safe, confident, and engaged.
Here’s how winter sports may feel to different SEPs and what you can do to support your child:
Unaware yet Deeply Thinking
These are our kids who are our movement-seeking, under-registering kids who crave strong sensory input. As you may imagine, winter sports can feel amazing to them – all of the deep pressure and resistance given to the nervous system that it craves, while they navigate the bursts of cold air and sometimes even snow swells! Winter sports can also feel tricky to them if they are in an unaware state – where do we go, how do we navigate, where is my body supposed to be?
Your Role to Support: The Connector. If you can help your child see where their body needs to be while navigating the sport, they will feel less unsure and more successful, wanting to do it again and again. It is also helpful if you can give them opportunities for quick bursts of input (which are typically naturally built right into these winter sports and often why they love them so much). Remember – these kids often have a hard time getting up to go, so even though these sports will likely fuel not only their bodies but their souls, they may need some encouragement to get started. Before leaving for the sport or a day on the slopes, try giving them some heavy work to play to get their bodies in a just right state. Putting on (often heavy) winter gear is also some added input that will help them achieve this level of input.
Anxious yet Deeply Feeling
These are our children with over-registering nervous systems who absorb input quickly and deeply. At first glance, or when they experience winter sports, they can feel overwhelmed, and they may quickly say, “Absolutely not, I am staying inside, thank you very much!” Similar to how the Grinch felt when hearing the Who’s singing with so many bright lights all at once, the bright snow, cold wind, new equipment that they likely feel they have no control over, and unpredictable movement can cause a lot of anxiety. That said, the cold itself can actually be super-regulating for our Anxious yet Deeply Feeling kids. Did you know the cold can actually release dopamine and reduce anxiety? So how do we get from anxious to regulated?
Your Role to Support. Playful Protector. If your child fits this SEP, ease into the activity. Go at their pace. We want them to feel in control and successful. Practice putting on the snow gear before the big day – putting it on for the first time at the mountain is likely going to cause a flop. Give them the opportunity to get heavy work before they engage in the activity. Relate this experience to prior experiences so they can visualize how it felt in their bodies the last time they engaged in the activity and how much they enjoyed it. One trick we often use is having them video record themselves after their experience so they are sharing with their future self how it felt, how it went, etc., in their own words – so they are not relying on your perspective but on their own. Another tip is to set up a safe space for them to take breaks in and to retreat to.
Confused yet Full of Wonder
These are our children who struggle with sensory discrimination in one or multiple of their systems. For these children, winter sports can be both confusing and an opportunity for experimentation, depending on how we help them navigate and the opportunities we afford them. Judging the speed, distance, and force of how to navigate the snow or ice may be tricky. However, if we are with them and can label the experience, they will be given the chance to do trial and error.
Your Role to Support. The Wondering Experimenter. To support a child with this SEP, we want to step into the world of exploration. Remember that the actions they want to take and the actions their body is performing do not match, leaving them confused. Pair your language with what the movement should entail – for example, if a child is skating, you might say “puuuuush to the right, puuuuush to the left” to guide them in putting enough input through the skate and moving in the direction needed.
Needy yet Compassionate
Children with this SEP tend to have postural weakness and instability. For these children, winter can be physically taxing, considering the heavy gear, slippery surfaces requiring stronger posture and core stability to sustain upright postures, and fatigue/low endurance may make activities that tend to require a lot of strength and heavy work harder to sustain. Alternatively, children with this SEP tend to love to snuggle and cozy up to read a book – perfect for our slow, cold, winter months!
Your Role to Support. The Encouraging Supporter. As the encouraging supporter, your role is to help your child engage in the activity despite their postural insecurity. This could mean supporting their posture through adapting the activity to require less need for postural strength, making plans for them to engage in the sport activities earlier in the day before they’ve expended a lot or all of their energy, and allow them to sit on the floor to get into their winter clothing. As the encouraging supporter, you can also use your affect to help guide their movements “sit uuuuuuup”.
Scattered yet Intentional and Passionate
Children with this SEP tend to have foundational challenges with motor planning (ideation, initiation, execution, and altering a plan based on feedback/feedforward) and sequencing. On one side, winter sports can be a mix of experiences that require complex motor planning, adapting to plans that may change due to weather, and the difficulty of constantly initiating motor plans (getting off the gondola, starting down the mountain, etc.). That said, winter sports can often be rote, predictable, and familiar. Often, children with motor planning challenges have a foundational need for input, and by receiving input through these sports, they become more organized in their motor movements. Children who are intentional and passionate about winter sports may thrive on using the same motor plans again and again.
Your Role to Support. The Organizer. For children who are Scattered yet Intentional and Passionate, we can help them by providing clear, predictable schedules and routines surrounding their engagement. If you are scattered, they will be scattered. If you are able to prepare yourself before helping them transition, it will help ensure a smoother interaction.
No personality is “right” or “wrong”—and none defines a child. SEPs simply help us understand how different nervous systems respond to different environments, including winter landscapes. Through this lens, we can use information of our SEPs to better support foundational preferences as well as potential unmet needs – so that we can find joy in the world around us and within relationships. For more information or to determine your child’s Sensory Emotional Personality, click here.
What Winter Sports Offer the Nervous System
Downhill Skiing
- Strong vestibular input from speed and shifting direction
- Deep proprioception from boots, terrain, and core engagement
- Regulating for seekers; overwhelming for sensitive or unstable systems
- Ski boots and socks can feel uncomfortable
Snowboarding
- High motor-planning demands
- Requires strength and stability through thighs and core
- Lots of falling (and therefore strong proprioception)
- Exciting for some; frustrating or discouraging for others
- Boots and socks can feel uncomfortable
Ice Skating
- Smooth, rhythmic movement can be deeply calming
- Requires strength and stability through thighs and core
- Gripping ski poles can provide extra input or create difficulty for those who have weakness
- Rinks can be loud, echoing, and visually over-stimulating
Sledding
- Fast, intense vestibular input with unpredictability
- Requires strength and stability through thighs and core
- May be difficult to sustain grip on sled rope
- Thrilling for some; disorganizing for others
Ice Hockey & Structured Programs
- Heavy gear can be grounding
- Children are often encouraged to crash – which provides a lot of heavy input!
- Noise, speed, and visual chaos vary widely which can cause dysregulation
Each reaction—positive or negative—gives us meaningful information.
Practical Tips for Parents
To help your child find their just-right challenge this winter:
- Prepare the nervous system with deep pressure or heavy work before activities
- Layer with intention to avoid itchiness, discomfort, or restrictive gear
- Start small, ending sessions while your child is still regulated
- Offer choices to support emotional safety and autonomy
- Pay attention to after-effects, not just the activity itself
- Validate your child’s experience, even if it seems small
- Stay flexible, knowing needs shift week to week (and season to season)
- Remember to PLAY
Winter sports can be powerful tools for regulation and connection—but only when we view them through the right lens. The goal isn’t to push children to “tolerate” winter activities; it’s to understand how their unique sensory-emotional profile shapes their experience.
When we playfully approach winter with curiosity rather than pressure, we gain insights that help us nurture confidence, engagement, and joy. At Great Kids Place, we believe that becoming detectives of our children’s sensory-emotional worlds allows them to feel truly seen—and children who feel seen are far more likely to thrive.
Tune in to episode 67 of our podcast and listen to AnnMarie Murphy explain Winter Sports through A Sensory Emotional Lens!
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