do you let your kids.............

I

Ibblebibble

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............ do the same daft stuff on ponies that we all used to do when we were kids?
do they do it thinking you don't know and you let them get on with it;) or do you make them wear hats gloves and body protectors every second they're around their ponies?

I lead my daughter bareback on her pony back to his paddock quite often, sometimes she has a hat on sometimes not, :eek: she used to sit on her old pony in the paddock while i poo picked, no head collar and no hat:eek:

so come on 'fess up, do you let your kids enjoy some of the freedom we used to have:cool:
 
The rule is the same for my son as it was for me... no hat no riding... other than that I hope as he gets older I'll be brave enough to let him enjoy his ponies... otherwise he's a boy... he'll give up!

BnBx
 
do you find though that you are with your children when with ponies more than your parent were with you? When i was a kid, my parents were never with me so would never know what i got up to unless i told them.
 
My daughter always wears a hat although when I was a child we wore them only for lessons and pony club rallies and sometimes on the road.

However she's hacked her pony to the field and back bareback, has gone to a pc rally with a bareback pad with stirrups instead of a proper saddle (that caused some consternation, especially when she was jumping), has done grids with no reins and stirrups, and has ridden in a headcollar. She owns a Kan and a Point2 and wears them as she sees fit which would mainly be for riding something she hasn't ridden before, riding our youngsters and of course XC. I should add that she's 20 now, so she is perfectly entitled to decide for herself when to use additional protection.
 
I insist my daughter (aged 8) wears a hat whenever mounted. She wears her body protector if she is competing in SJ or XC and for lessons.

However she does often ride bareback round the fields, does silly things like sits on backwards in the woods when hacking and canters on grass verges while I'm trotting on the lanes round our way. Her pony is a saint out hacking and she is a capable little rider for her age.
. I do let her have fun but I did some mad things in my childhood that I would never let her do!!
 
when i was younger i didn't wear hats around the farm, just pony club and trekking stables, and never heard of body protectors! my mother was never around to watch us but always knew if we had been silly and told us off for it but she was never strict with hats until after a serious accident with my sister (for the second time!).

i watch my kids around the horses and get so stressed/worried and then think back to my childhood, i can't believe i worry so much about them when after all the stupid things i did as a kid didn't kill me! lol
 
cuppatea said:
do you find though that you are with your children when with ponies more than your parent were with you? When i was a kid, my parents were never with me so would never know what i got up to unless i told them.
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yes i suppose i am, i do try not to wrap them in cotton wool and sometimes i do have to stop myself getting overly mumsy lol, i want them to have some of the fun and freedom we did as kids but I'm also very aware of the dangers. it's a very fine line i think !
 
no not at all and 22 years on she will not get on horse without hat gloves and proper foot wear - yes i did manic stuff with pony but i went to train at the most brilliant yard - great bookham riding centre - and safety and how to act think, be proud and how to be around horses was installed in me - thank you mr and mrs howe what you taught me is with me still 32 yrs on - the simple fact of taking pride when you ride,muck out, turn a horse out(my darling Acer my hunter who i turned out every week) - so ask my daughter and she will say had most amazing childhood with fun and ponies but always the correct way to behave :) being safe doesnt mean no fun :)
 
riding_high said:
i watch my kids around the horses and get so stressed/worried and then think back to my childhood, i can't believe i worry so much about them when after all the stupid things i did as a kid didn't kill me! lol
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lol, we don't think of our parents as bad parents who didn't care though do we ? but now it seems that if we let our kids do even half the stuff we did we would be branded as bad parents:confused:
at one point in my teens i think i spent more time on the floor than i did in the saddle on one pony, back then it was ahh well never mind, if my daughters pony did that to her now i think OH would shoot it:eek:
 
The kids are grown up now, but yes, they had the same freedom I had. The girls were 'horse aware' and knew how to be sensible around horses, but otherwise I never wanted them to learn to be afraid. My philosophy with the girls and horses, and the boys and motorbikes, was to be prudent but to have a 'whoo hoo' attitude too.
A short life well lived is worth a thousand long lives in which you are never fully alive. One son was particularly fearless and every year on his birthday, I give a sigh of relief that he'd made it through another year.
 
ps my daughter would go to field with headcollar( as i did) catch pony(as i did) jump on back bare back(as I did) and gallop across field( as i did) difference she always as her hat on -thats difference :)
 
Ibblebibble said:
lol, we don't think of our parents as bad parents who didn't care though do we ? but now it seems that if we let our kids do even half the stuff we did we would be branded as bad parents:confused:
at one point in my teens i think i spent more time on the floor than i did in the saddle on one pony, back then it was ahh well never mind, if my daughters pony did that to her now i think OH would shoot it:eek:
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god yeah, i only have to mention i have horses to some people and they are horrified that i risk my kids lives by owning horses as well, or they start saying things like and if you had a bad accident who would look after your kids, you must be so irrisponsible! lol

i got up to way too much mischief when i was a kid, i'm also kinda proud of it as well! :D

i often say i wish i could go back to my childhood as it was the best. my kids aren't 'into' the horses but they do appreciate them but i've had a few moments where my heart has stopped watching them around/on them.
 
I got converted to body protectors on Monday. I watched in horror as a young lad ran up behind a horse (not pony) and got both barrels!He went flying .I didnt dare hope he would be unscathed ,it didnt seem possible. He was shocked and winded but his body protector had absorbed the lot.!:eek::eek:He was up and on his pony in no time. Start em young on body protectors and let it become second nature!
 
When my daughter had a pony before we knew she was in foal she always had to wear a hat, but yes I see nothing wrong in a good gallop piping over some jumps and riding bareback etc if she fell off she dusted herself off and got back on saying I must be a better rider today mummy i have nearly fell off as much as you :D
At the same time as having pony I also taught on the rs we had to bring in a policy that any rider who fell was not allowed to re mount untill medical attention was seeked :( I hated this policy but it came about by parents trying to sue cause child fell the child done nothing wrong just unbalanced and pony done nothing wring just put head down. The RI teaching that lesson said it was one of them falls that we have prob all had when learning, but it was one part of the job I hated having to follow that damn policy :(
 
whilst i agree horserider simple safety is must- hat proper footwear, hi viz when hacking out (so my pet hate seeing ppl riding with no hi viz grrrrr)- ponies esp are to enjoy but has you say teach them to be horse/pony aware - pony days are to be savioured and remebered in later life(thank you sunny) but livid to remebered :) pony days are best :) xx
 
Hat and bp or no riding.

Seatbelts weren't compulsory when I was a young kid, neither were car seats and it didn't kill me, doesn't mean I'll not bother strapping them in when they are in the car ;)
 
Ibblebibble said:
I lead my daughter bareback on her pony back to his paddock quite often, sometimes she has a hat on sometimes not, :eek: she used to sit on her old pony in the paddock while i poo picked, no head collar and no hat:eek:

so come on 'fess up, do you let your kids enjoy some of the freedom we used to have:cool:
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I'm sorry, I really don't think that is a sensible thing to do. I'm not a mother, and I have done some pretty silly things when I was younger (and do ride in a Patey now at my own peril) but then I am old enough and ugly enough to understand the consequences.
It was perfectly acceptable a few years ago to not wear hats, it wasn't that long ago that everyone used to showjump in pateys and flat caps, but as safety advances it does seem a little silly to allow your child not to wear a hat, when I was younger I got away with things because my parents didn't know I was doing them, and I knew they would go crackers if they found out!
 
I do agree that children should wear hats properly fitted and buckled, and the grandchildren wear Hi Viz every time they are off the premises.
Hi Viz hadn't been invented when I was a child and hats with elastic were used only for lessons.
Hi viz is my big bug bear because of the risk to other road users, so my lot always wear it, no matter how clever they are in the saddle.
 
even when i was a kid the rule was you had a hat when you rode.

I had concussion a lot as a kid, (mostly due to the fact that I was unsupervised while I rode and the donkey and my first pony were not ideal first ponies, but my parents did not know that) including when I was 8 yrs old and was in and out of conciousness for about 20 hrs. (and was wering a hat)

So the rule for my kids is still that they wear a hat, even if they are collecting the horses from the paddock to ride back up the hill to tack up. Very occasionally they forget, but they soon get reminded, most the time (98%) they grab a hat of their own accord without reminder.

Re body protectors they have them, but only really use them when (a) on a difficult or new pony for my older son, that has not been ridden or been ridden for a while, or (b) at an event that requires it.

Yes as kids we had more freedoms, but I do not know how I survived my riding childhood. I make sure my kids are supervised while they ride, and only now as teenagers are they occasionally riding without me watching, when they were pre teens that never happened. I am also now more confident in their ability and the ponies, than I was. It is not just a matter of age.
 
Hat always!

But don't see anything wrong with bareback riding?????? saddles aren't a safety feature, bareback u won't get caught on anything and develop good balance etc etc
 
Also kids who can ride don't fall off like adults do, they are bendy balanced little magnets, like we didn't fall off that readily as a child doing all this galloping bareback. confidence goes a long way to staying on!
 
Devonshire dumpling said:
Also kids who can ride don't fall off like adults do, they are bendy balanced little magnets, like we didn't fall off that readily as a child doing all this galloping bareback. confidence goes a long way to staying on!
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This is so true. My grandson at 2 yrs old could do sitting trot bareback with such fluidity and stability that I thought about asking him for tips.
 
my youngest child rides bareback with no problems at all, he even does the most perfect sitting trot however put a saddle on the horse and he isn't as well balanced and gets a bit 'wobbly' doing a trot. strange!
 
riding_high said:
my youngest child rides bareback with no problems at all, he even does the most perfect sitting trot however put a saddle on the horse and he isn't as well balanced and gets a bit 'wobbly' doing a trot. strange!
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Actually that's completely normal - they tend to have a perfect 'natural' balance bareback :)
 
I'm pretty sure if my mum knew half of the stuff I used to and still do get up to she'd make sure I had a hat on, then laugh because if I'm telling her then I was okay :p It's always been an absolute must to wear a hat though. I was allowed to go down the field, half a mile away and bring the ponies up bareback (riding the safe one and leading the rearer) as long as I had a hat and preferably a bridle on the pony I was riding. When I was 9 I was allowed to do the 15 minute hack across the fields on my pony to the school on my own. I went hacking for hours with my best mate and we always did stupid things, jumping everything, galloping about BUT we always wore hats & proper boots and we were always always polite to anyone we met, walked past other horses, respected the land (not riding on crops etc) and if on the roads wore hi-viz. I've jumped round XC on my horses in nothing but a headcollar for a dare, I've done numerous grids bareback or with no reins and stirups, usually sent down them by my mother! I've been chucked on anything thats a bit naughty (although often with a BP) because no one else will and I'm not too worried about hitting the deck, I hunted from the age of 11, never wearing a BP. So yeah, my mum lets me do what most people would think completely stupid, dangerous and reckless, but then I've always been allowed to make the decision and never put in the position where I've got no hope of staying safe. I've sprained my wrists countless times, twisted a few ankles, broken a few fingers and had thousands and thousands of bruises, but I've always enjoyed it! and always got back on :D
 
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