I am not your babysitter! I would like to come to the yard and do my horses in peace!

I feel your pain! I frequently get asked "can I stroke handy?" to which I explain he's in a mood and may bite "when can I stroke handy?" aaaah it's so annoying. Coming down from the field "can I walk handy?" I politely explain he may pull/ drag. Child then tries to touch him. Also find child in my stable when I'm in there.
I'm on a riding school/ livery yard and there's loads of children about. I saw one child come out of the feed room, go up to my boy, holding his hand out, saying "I've got food for you..,no I haven't!" and walked off and left handy very confused. Had words with staff and yo. My horse doesn't generally like children :)
 
Nightmare. I can confirm the effectiveness of the death stare.....
Tell em to piss off back to their own pony.
My daughter used to live in fear of a family like this when we were on livery.....the kids were spoiling her pony time, so scary mum had to step in .Grrrrrr :) :)
 
Be a scary person when they run around to your box be as horrid as you can be the fingers crossed they will avoid you like the plague. I hate small annoying children on the yard ( small polite ones are alright ) it is deffo worth speaking to the yard owner think how bad it may get in the summer hols. At least a word now may nip it in the bud. And if the parents don't notice the children have disappeared to annoy you could you not round them up in to a empty stable and bolt the top door at Least till you had finished
 
Twinkle Shy said:
This is also my very, very, very worst nightmare - the yard and being with my horse is my sanctuary, which I is why I am at the yard I'm at. I really feel for you.

I would be concerned about retaliation tbh. My first action would be to have a very frank word with the YO - health and safety, that you are not responsible WHEN your mare bites, that you are very unhappy, etc. My second action, if that fails, is to move.

Reporting this guy may sound nice, but surely he could suss out who did it ? Urgh, what a nightmare.
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Who cares... why should i work myself into the ground to pay for him?
 
I think your first mistake was entertaining them in the first place.

I am ALWAYS to guy kids stay away from (that sounds so dodgy, lol) I dont talk to them, i blatantly ignore them and if i do say something its normally a dead pan look and a "go away"

I do it with all children in all situations because i cant ****ing stand kids!!!!!!

(except my nephews and nieces because they are well trained and i adore them) :D
 
Tell them your horse bites and kicks and that you will NOT be responsible if the kid gets hurt. The kid should stay with its family not with you. Or sit somewhere quiet out the way.

Tell the YO as they need to make it plain and simple to the child /family that the yard is a dangerous place and that the children need to be supervised by a responsible adult. Its the YO insurance at risk here. You should not have to be responsible and I am suprised children are allowed to roam the yard, however annoying.

I dont think there is any need to be horrible as thats how yards become bitchy and nasty and I know I was one of those annoying children once. Good luck.
 
Teach em swear words and rude sayings... mum and dad will soon keep em away from ya..... :D and if it doesn't well see how many rude limericks or rhymes you can find out...........

Mary had a little lamb... she put it in a bucket.... and every time the lamb got out the bulldog tried to **** it.

:D

Or get the Tenacious Dee CD and play that - loads of rude songs on their !
 
I'm not a kid hater - we all were kids one day I treat all the same I either like people or I don't if they're 6 or 96 - however - this is so not on - I used to be on a yard where there was a little kid and she would stand by my door asking where my horse was, what I was doing etc over and over again and then she would get her wheelbarrow and want to help me and drop shavings everywhere and have to come to the muck heap so it would take 10 minutes as opposed to 2. Trouble is the parents think it's cute and basically they can get their stable done, have a chat etc whilst muggins is babysitting - then I'd get 'just watch her a minute will you' and then walk off for an hour.

I could have cried and started avoiding times when I knew they would be there. I would speak to your YO in the first instance and then I would probably try ignoring kids - it was more difficult for me as her mum was a friend before she had her but if it's a new family I would ignore.
 
this is my worst nightmare too and i left my last yard due to kids lots of them running around, taking stuff from my grooming kit, riding scooters and bikes near my 4 yr old who actually didnt bother but even so, shouting, running round playing hide and seek etc etc. oh my god it is so nice to go to the new yard there are 5 of us we all get on and although we may not see everyone every day we just get on with it and help each other.
 
You need to speak to the YO along the lines that this is a Health & Safety matter. The parents of this family probably don't realise the problems that their children are causing. The children aren't causing them any issues because they are around your causing you problems. Apart from being annoying they run a serious risk of being injured. I was on a yard a few years ago & there was a tribe that used to come up & we had similar issues with them charging around, standing behind horses, walking under them etc. It was scarey. The YO spoke to the parents & warned them. Fortunately the penny dropped & they ralised that the yard was no a nursery or playground & the motjher started coming down with just one or two children & father stayed home & sat the others.
 
Just to say we moved yard because of similar problem. My daughters TB nearly had a nervous breakdown! Moved to a teeny weeny yard with no facilities, but the peace & quiet is worth any amount of turnout & schooing facilities! Oh, & horse no longer box walks or pulls back or throw her hay everywhere, OR, refuse to go into her box!
 
ANTW23uk love your reply. I can't stand kids either. Come in my stable and they would be drop kicked out just as fast. Little bastards.
 
Im not really that fond of rugrats myself. They are like cats though.. they allways go to the people who don t like them. .
 
Oh my god, 6 children! :eek: I can just see them running about. I'd actually pass out . I think I'd definitely be on the move. I'm almost sure this family visited my work last year on holiday! We called them the von trapp family :o
 
As the parent of a child who's small child has spent her life on yards, I entirely agree. She does play as well as do her pony, however she has more sense of how to behave round horses than many adults on yards. And doesn't go round mithering people, she's my responsibility, not everyone else's. I'm more than happy to talk to pony mad kids & let them help, but I can't stand brats or parents who think I'm a babysitting service. But, if someone blanked a polite non mithering question from my child, just because they '****ing hate kids' or were bad mannered to her purely because she was a child, I can promise I would repay that ten fold. Before now at 7yrs old she's correctly answered more questions from numpty adults than she's ever asked.
 
Hmmm I would def report the benefit cheating, how he managed to sire 6 kids with a bad back is beyond me. Why should we keep his kids!!!!

I have never understood why people let their kids run wild driving others mad, I had to take my son to the yard when he was small and he knew exactly what he could and could not do.

I too find the death stare very efficient and it is worth practising this as it really works.

Meanwhile, I would have a word with the YO, you really should not have to put up with this - am steaming on your behalf!
 
This sounds like an utter nightmare, hope you can resolve it somehow, I would find it upsetting because the yard is like a sanctuary for me and whilst I don't mind kids I'd find it all a bit much. I just I don't think I would report the dad for benefit fraud though, you don't know the full story with these people.
 
I've been on a yard where some of the owners lived off benefits, and managed horse ownership.. sickens me, as I had to work overtime at one stage to keep mine, lord knows what things they were cutting back on to keep theirs.. and those who smoke - how did they find the spare cash?
I don't smoke myself, but my OH used to, and the going rate is a fiver for ten isn't it (correct me if I'm wrong, no idea how much a packet actually costs)..
 
How did i guess you were going to say they were on benefits, six kids and a pony on livery where do they get the money from, makes me so angry. Would it help to have a word with the parents, trouble is if they like it they will stay these sort of people are oblivious to other people, its a case of i am all right jack, not worried about you. maybe there benefits will get reduced then they wont be able to afford to stay at the yard, know that sounds horrible but it comes back to the same old question how do people with that many children afford a pony even if they are both working let alone if they are on benefits, imagine the food bill let alone the house they must have.
I could go on but will shut up now!
 
mcnaughty said:
Defo both of these ideas but I would tell the mum that your mare has in the past bitten someone really badly - make up a huge story about loads of blood and lost fingers and hopefully mum will get the message.
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only problem with this is they actually think the horse IS a potential killer and can start knocking them about. This is what happened at a yard I was at, not my horse I hasn't to add, but a friends. Everytime the newby walked past it, once they thought it was a killer, they would smack its nose, waving their arms at it and generally just be way over the top to stop the poor thing getting wihtin 10 feet of them. The horse became very shy and nervous ... me and my friend moved in the end as no-one seemed to give a s***.
 
There could be a number of reasons why this family can have a pony, inheritance might be one, they've whittled away a bit of money into a bank account over the years, insurance payout (dad having bad back), or receiving a hell of a lot of disability payment, which since the rules have changed recently, may be about to either shrink, or disappear.
http://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/forthcomingchanges.htm
Most yards I've been on, don't allow kids to run about screaming, as it scares the horses, and can cause an accident.
 
First off, I will buck the trend and say I chose our current yard as it was so child friendly, but more of that in a moment. Regarding the benefit cheat, there exists a telephone number where you can report the like of him anomously. I guess thats another argument, for another time and thread, but people like that make my blood boil.

Regarding the annoyance the kids are causing. Talk to the YO, I would have a good guess they are peeing off other liveries as well.

I deliberately chose my yard, where I have beern been for over 6 years on the basis that its so child friendly. Our YO has young children, who are pefectly well behaved and treat the horses with respect. Some of the other liveries have young children who come to the yard and we all take turns to look after them. My daughter was 11/12 when we moved and we had been on a much bigger yard with all sorts, including children. It was important to me that she was happy as well. I would add that we have had all sorts of ups and downs with all the children of liveries, but for the most part they are well behaved and respectful and I cant say a day has gone by when I have felt irritated by their presence at the yard.
 
I'm in complete agreement - our yard's mainly women in their forties and fifties, with a couple of teenagers and three in their twenties. Most of the young women don't have kids, but the older ones occasionally bring their grandchildren with them.

The majority of kids will sit quietly in the car or colour in the tearoom while Nanny does the horses but the ones that don't do my cake in! There used to be a woman who had two girls, and another that has a boy of roughly the same age, and they used to wind up the hell out of one another, running around the yard squealing at the top of their lungs and generally being a PITA.

One day I went into the barn to do my haynets and the three of them were charging round the barn grabbing handfuls of hay and throwing it at one another. I yelled at them to stop it at once, saying that people had to pay a lot of money for the hay, the horses couldn't eat it if it had been all over the floor, and the lady who owns the farm would be very cross if she had to sweep it all up and throw it away. You should have heard what the two parents said to me! I had no idea how hard it was to bring up children and look after horses, and what are they supposed to do if mum's busy? Actually, yes I DO know about bringing up a child, and teaching it how to behave in public. (One of them's a single parent and the other's husband refused to look after his own kids to give her a break with her horse). And how DARE I speak to their children in that way? And on and on it went, making me look like a right cow.

This will probably make me most unpopular, but a working yard is no place for children. Our yard is definitely NOT child friendly (well, the people are, but you know what I mean). It's a working farm as well as a livery yard and it's not safe for unsupervised children.
 
Snopuma, where are you in the country? I ask because they sound exactly like a nightmare family we had on our yard a while ago...!
 
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