If you were an instructor...

C

cosmo_sam

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 November 2006
Messages
957
Location
Cheshire, UK
www.cosmohorse.com
do you think you could teach children who own their own ponies to ride??

I think what my point is, I've recently come across a child who was handed a pony on a plate (it turned out to be a total star - very easy to do anything with). He's now moved up to a horse which is possibly going to be a very different kettle of fish and is too big.

A friend has been trying to offer some advice as to the difference between his pony and this horse, but feels it has probably fallen on deaf ears. He's expecting to jump on, and do as he pleases - take it wherever he wants BSJA, hutning etc (the parents don't have a clue and don't really ask for advice as such).

Anyway, this sort of thing REALLY grates on me. I believe passionately that children should be aware of how much respect horse's deserve before even being allowed to ride. I then believe they should only compete when they have proved themselves as all round riders and mini horsepeople.

Unfortunately the types of kids who have access to ponies are often the ones for whom most things are easy come easy go, and so this isn't going to be a likely thing to happen.

I don't think I could teach kids on their own ponies for this reason. Riding school maybe very different as the kids there may well just appreciate any time with horses.

It could just be my idealism plaguing me again though!
grin.gif
 
we my children have there own ponies , don't see why it should be any different for a instructor to teach them , other than my children practice riding a lot more than a child who uses a riding school pony
confused.gif
 
Sorry, I read that back and realised I'm likely to offend lots of mum's on here!

I do know many children who do want to understand how and why things are done, but I've also come across many who couldn't give a stuff and are only in it for what fun they can have (have met some adults like that too I may add!
smile.gif
)

I think really I'm saying as an instructor it must be very frustrating to teach the spoilt brat type kids and that they must come across many of them so what would you do? refuse to teach them?
 
lucky the kids with me are keen to learn and ride their own and my ponies fine and do as they are told but I do find that the kids attitude is - as in 'normal' school - a reflection of their home and attitudes elsewhere.

if they are going to be pains then generally they are pains in other aspects of their existence

there is one brat at local pony club - we call her the child from hell - spoilt - large capitals - double underlined ;-))

lots of 10k horses/ponies - which she then proceeds to ruin in about a month and she's only 12 now - hate to think what she'll do to future horses and I feel like all her nags need rescueing from her

when she was 10 she had a beautiful pony - but she deliberately taught it to rear because she thought it made her look clever.

she is a bit of a lump and outgrew that pony - so another under 10 was riding it last summer - and the pony reared with that poor child and the child ended up being taken to hospital on a spinal board (turned out to be a fractured cocix) - and what did the child and mother do whilst their pony was loose and the child was lying in agony on the ground ??? -= why go up to the burger van and get coffee and bacon butties.....

if you have parents setting that sort of example - horsey or not - it cannot but reflect on the behaviour of the child.

people/kids are all teachable - it just depends on whether you are now allowed to 'teach' them in the manner needed (extrapolating to 'Bad Lads Army' here)

apparently above child behaves exactly the same at school and the teachers there can do nothing with her - personally I'd like to see her at a school with an army cadet core and a sergeant major !!!
 
I'd like to think I could be as diplomatic as you and rise to the challenge
smile.gif


I suppose that is the task really, to try and inspire these kids to WANT to understand.

It's a very different world though now. Kids in the past would do things because an adult said so without question. Now though, the majority of kids I meet think the world revolves around them, and are not really used to being told it as it is.

How do you try and inspire them?
 
sometimes inspire is not what it's about

it sounds like this is a combination of buying success for the kid and also buying something the kid demands in order to 'keep it quiet and out of parents hair'

sometimes I do wonder why people have kids as later they seem to spend a fortune on computers, tvs, horses, bikes, etc so that the kids are out of sight as much as possible (and perhaps out of mind as well)

not cynical enough to extrapolate it as far as saying people here breed kids to look after them in their old age..........
 
[ QUOTE ]
people/kids are all teachable - it just depends on whether you are now allowed to 'teach' them in the manner needed (extrapolating to 'Bad Lads Army' here)

apparently above child behaves exactly the same at school and the teachers there can do nothing with her - personally I'd like to see her at a school with an army cadet core and a sergeant major !!!

[/ QUOTE ]

Hehe! I think we're on the same wavelength!!

I do think though that it would be very rewarding if you could manage to get a light bulb to go on wiht a difficult child and in this day and age it has to be through routes other than boot camp!
laugh.gif


Hmmm? Anyone willing to share their methods?
smile.gif
 
This is a really difficult reply for me because if I answer it honestly, you may take offence..
I never cared what type /level of horse/pony anyone brought to me, because as an instructor I firmly believed I could improve them whatever they rode.
I agree they do have to want to improve but I never met one that didn't understand the sheer joy of achieving something.
As for given a pony on a plate scenario, when my kids reached 10 or 12 I passed on to them a welsh cob I had schooled for myself. What would you rather them have, a kick and struggle type horse who would only make them ride worse, or a well trained animal they could learn walk to canter wth minimal effort?
All of mine at various times had ponies they "made" .As a dealer they always had their choice to swap their current mount for any of the ones I had in for sale, so they had their fair share of difficult ponies too.

I've taught kids on shetlands to kids on ex eventers, and would stongly disagree with your "must have respect " feelings, of course they need to treat their animals well, but to feel grateful/ C'mon, few kids ever do that!
As a former riding school owner I have also seen kids who live and breathe for that one hour on a horse a week, but you will never get that same thing from privately owned people, they accept what they have, do you thank God every day for your washing machine for instance, no you just accept it's there!
As for the lad with the new horse, he'll soon discover horses are very unlike ponies they have nasty habits of tanking off, napping etc and getting very hot if ridden like a motorbike..
He'll either give up or seek a decent instructor, and wouldn't it be more satisfying to be the one to help him than put him down?
As for who you would teach, when it comes down to paying the bills you teach all sorts of people! The only one I ever refused was a lady who rode twice a week. Every horse was too small too big, too wide, too slow, too fast, too bumpy, too anything.
One morning I walked into the stable yard to find a furious row going on between my two instructors. Both were fighting to avoid teaching her.
I got them both in my car and we drove round to the woman's house, where I handed her the money for the cancelled lesson, explained it was cancelled because none of the instructors wanted to teach her and asked her not to book again..
grin.gif

Sometimes you just can't win as in her case...
 
my children never talk back to adults[other than me
smirk.gif
] & are always polite & willing to learn , otherwise they would no longer have said pony
smile.gif


at the end of the day your being paid to teach them , if you don't think you can do that then no point wasting your time or parents money
smile.gif


i would just say i dont feel happy teaching them
smile.gif
 
I wouldn't take offence on something like this
smile.gif
and am genuinely interested to hear how instructors do deal with this on a daily basis. It's one thing for me to get frustrated at one scenario, but another to have to face it regularly.

It sounds to me like you have a very balanced approach to teaching, and yes, when something pays the bills we all have to compromise our ideals - I'm sure I'd be first to bite my lip!
smile.gif


Fair point re the washing machine analogy too!
laugh.gif


If I put things another way, in your experience, do you find teaching novice adults more rewarding or novice children?
 
I suppose get to their level , get to know them outside of horses ...... I think it could possibly be me being that stubborn also lol .


Every child is different , what works with one child may well be a far cry from the next .

At my local riding school where i teach , we have up to 30 kids on a saturday . I have to say I know each and every one of them quite well .
There is 2 kids (brother and sister) the boy is a great little rider full of guts and determination and the other is well shes a little madam that is spoilt . But I think the past couple of weeks I have cracked her, she needs the same determination and concentration as her brother . I have had a one to one with her and she explained to me that she wanted to do the same as her brother meaning that she thought she wasnt getting the same praise as him, I said bluntly , " well lets see you try really hard in this lesson and show your brother up in the next lesson
wink.gif
" and by god she did . pretty simple terms .


Its all about understanding kids and thinking like a kid in a way ( thats easy for me :P )

Inspiring kids can take hell of alot of hard work . * you can take a horse to water but you cant always make it drink * goes with kids , if they dont have it in them then .....
 
what henry says is true - you can always improve horse and/or rider somewhere but perhaps not both at the same time (as in novice rider on wily older horse set in its ways) - but the rider has got to want to learn/improve/survive

there are the kamikaze jockeys around on the madhatter nag where the nag goes like an upside down camel flat out, rider has zero style and both seem to stay together and get results. Luck does come into it sometimes ;-)

I do think also that I've been lucky to have been taught by some seriously good people in my time and that some instructors now can have 'formulaic' lessons that create boredom in both the horse and the rider - I've watched enough of the PClub rallies to see which of the instructors inspire and which ones 'merely' teach. That difference is a gift which some teachers (in whatever arena) have and others don't.

Must admit though if I've been teaching and rider is persistently doing something that is bad for the horse I'll do my own impression of army sergeant major !!

(one of the kids used to loan my old pony - she just kept on tipping forward, kicking (aggravating) pony, and going into canter from rising trot. I told her about 10 times that if she didn't stop doing those things I'd take her saddle away - did that for about 3 lessons - kid didn't believe me - she does now ;-)) (and yep - she goes into canter from sitting trot and doesn't tip forward anymore - hehehe))
 
I did the old stick behind back and in through the arms job on a little girl that sticks her bum out and shoulders are slouched forward .


Time and time again , kept telling her to bring her shoulders back ,well by the time the lesson had finished I did notice a big improvement, only problem is she will revert back to the " normal position" next week , also another fave of mine is tying the stirrup irons to the girth * cue evils *
 
If I had kids Iwould buy them the best pony I could as whatever you say it's a lot more fun riding something nice than struggling. And I would much rather they hung around the stables than Somerfield.
 
yep - nice ones those as well - plus the tying knot in reins and riding without them for a rider that won't stop hanging onto horses mouth

shame now is that it is so litigation happy that it is 'unsafe' to allow them to ride without stirrups, etc.

I gave up being registered and teaching 8 years ago mainly due to that and time pressures - so now I only teach the liveries now and again when they want help - the odd 10 mins now and again (usually when I'm being the slave picking up jumps for them !!) - rest of the time I leave it to the pony club
 
Some kids around horses have less manners than the ones outside Somerfield.

I think, as it has been said above, that if the reason the parents buy horses is to get the kids out their hair, the effect on them will be little different to giving them £50 and saying "go entertain yourself". In fact it may be worse as the kids may have a superiority complex to go with it!!!
 
[ QUOTE ]
yep - nice ones those as well - plus the tying knot in reins and riding without them for a rider that won't stop hanging onto horses mouth

shame now is that it is so litigation happy that it is 'unsafe' to allow them to ride without stirrups, etc.

I gave up being registered and teaching 8 years ago mainly due to that and time pressures - so now I only teach the liveries now and again when they want help - the odd 10 mins now and again (usually when I'm being the slave picking up jumps for them !!) - rest of the time I leave it to the pony club

[/ QUOTE ]

Unfortunately our world has gone " claim happy " ..... I know a well established centre that is bhs approved , got all the signs up but have half a dozen people sueing .
 
I've taught both riding school and freelance, and I can honestly say that I enjoyed both. Maybe those who have met me could fathom why! I am pretty no nonsense and don't DO rudeness, be it from the child, the parents or the horse. I've had quiet chats with all 3 groups in my own little way at certain times, but this applies as much at a riding school as it does for people with their own horses.

I've also taught the 'sacrificed a lot to give little Jane a pony' families as well as 'well let's buy her a new 10k pony' families and I really did get on well with all of them. I rarely found a child who didn't love their ponies - an occassional teenager would have a temper tantrum, but them would soon find out that whatever they thought they could dole out, I was far far scarier! I've yanked whips and spurs from people (adults and children) and even unhooked reins from one particulaly stroppy person, but they are far and away the exception, and it is usually a reflection of something un horse related (cheapest shrink you'll find, a riding instructor!)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top