‘They just go for it’: In this South Jordan warehouse, tiny kids are learning to recognize fear and build resilience on skateboards

South Jordan • Kids on skateboards — some nearly as tall as their tiny riders — zoom through the warehouse park. The thwack of polyurethane wheels against concrete and wood echo off the metal walls, punctuating their instructors’ calls of “good job” or, perhaps more important, “good fall.”

A lot about learning to skateboard is overcoming the fear of falling and building the confidence to get back up again, said coach Jason Davis in between lessons at the skateboard park.

“But really, the bigger part of our mission is to teach mental resilience,” said Cole Parkinson, one of this group’s founders, “and give them all the skills that they need for their life.”

Carry On was created by Parkinson, Threads wallets co-founder Colby Bauer and David Lowery in a state where suicide rates have consistently outpaced national statistics. About 37% of high school students here reported feeling sad or hopeless, surveys have shown, and nearly 23% seriously considered attempting suicide.

Parkinson studied sports psychology, while Lowery has a background in education and skateboarding. Bauer brought the “primary vision” for what Carry On would become, Parkinson said, because of his family’s struggles with mental health.

The group launched its first program in a small park in Lehi in 2021 and formally became a nonprofit in 2022. They opened a skate park in Provo in 2024, named for Bauer’s uncle, Glenn Parker, who died by suicide in 1993.

This fall, Carry On expanded into Salt Lake County, operating out of an unassuming warehouse near Daybreak. In addition to teaching life lessons to children through the lens of skateboarding, they’ve opened the programs to adults too. About two months of classes costs around $250 to just over $300, according to the group’s website.

The lesson for the dozen or so 4-6-year-old skaters this mid-November day is about focus. The classes are broken up into active skate time and resiliency training, where the kids swap boards and adrenaline for chairs and reflection.

At the end of each session, Davis asks each skater to stack their boards in a pile. Then, they huddle around it and reflect on the day’s teachings.

“What are the three parts of our body we use to focus?” Davis asked the kids this day.

Eyes, they say, so they can watch. Brains, to think and feel. Ears, to hear what’s happening. Then, they put their hands together and break, shouting “carry on!” in unison.

Focus, Davis said later, is an important part of their curriculum. As the kids build confidence on their boards, they learn how to recognize their confidence level: Green is good to go, yellow is cautious and red, he said, just means they’re not ready yet.

Once they have that, they need to build focus so they can advance, Davis said. Then, the coaches teach them about finding motivation, intrinsically and extrinsically, to improve.

Parkinson said the founders chose skateboarding to teach these lessons first because the “barrier to entry is very low.” Unlike skiing or snowboarding — which Parkinson grew up doing — attaining skateboarding gear is relatively inexpensive.

Second, skateboarding “requires independent resilience.”

“Meaning,” Parkinson continued, “that you cannot point the finger at the quarterback who didn’t pass you the ball. You cannot point the finger at the coach that didn’t put you into the basketball game.”

“It requires this very one-to-one accountability experience for each individual,” he continued, “of saying, ‘I’m either doing this, or I’m not doing this. It’s totally up to me.’”

Kiley De Visser enrolled her son Charles in the 4-6-year-old program in part because her husband skateboards, and she thought this was a good way for her son to learn. But also, she said, it’s a way for him to build mental health skills, like how to regulate emotions and learn outside his comfort zone.

“He’s nervous at first,” De Visser said after Wednesday’s lesson, “but I feel like every week we get out of class, I see him learning more and more and getting more confident in himself and what he can do.”

The week before, she said, she watched as he pushed himself to learn to “drop in” — “I cannot do that,” she said empathetically.

“I was just impressed,” De Visser continued. “They just go for it, and they try their best and they bounce back up if they fall.”

Dropping in requires a kid to perch their board on the edge of a ramp, stare down the incline and stomp down hard, trusting that the board will stay beneath them as they descend. If you don’t stomp hard enough, or fully commit to the movement, you’ll probably fall.

“It’s scary. It’s very intense,” Parkinson said, “but a coach can hold your hands through that. We can throw a mat in front of you.”

It doesn’t mean the child won’t fall, but it does mean they’ll learn to overcome it — by getting back up. Eventually, with repetition, they’ll master the technique.

Along the way, Parkinson said, kids learn what fear feels like and strategies to deal with it, from deep breaths or moving into an athletic, powerful stance the Carry On folks call “hero body.”

Wearing a teal helmet complimented by pink-and-yellow knee pads, Radley Meredith practiced kick turns, distributing her weight on the board and shifting its orientation 180-degrees.

Dianna Meredith, her mother, watched nearby. At first, Meredith said her daughter seemed “very timid.” Today, she said, she “runs right in there.” The little girl, her mom said, loves the feeling of dropping in.

Meredith said she enrolled Radley in these classes to try to help with the mental health issues she said run in her family. Meredith herself has struggled with depression, she said. While the family lives in Utah County, she said this new location works better for them.

The skateboarding classes have taught her daughter that she can talk about her feelings, and it’s given her an activity that she can be passionate about.

“I always ask her what she loves about skateboarding,” Meredith said, “and she says it makes her feel strong and brave and sometimes a little scared.”

“She’s fallen a few times,” Meredith said, “but she says she gets right back up and keeps going.”

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