Kids on yards.

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Cruiseonamiro

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Does anyone keep their horse on a child free yard? Can't go into too many details, you never know who's reading, and technically i'm still a child myself. The vast majority of children are well behaved bt it seems to me that some are a little rude and cocky when left alone etc. Can't say anything else really, just intrigued!
 
I wish mine was a child free yard, we only have one on ours and it is not good!

I am also technically a child aswell, but I fell it unfair to be put in the same category as a wingeing/hyper eight year old.
 
ours is a child free yard,any that come in to our yard have to be with an adult,i like it quiet i dont even like my own child in the yard !!!!!
unless there is some cleaning duty to be done and then its only when there are no horses in
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Hmmm, I haven't been to many livery yards as i've always been on private yards so can't really say much.

But it is lovely on a private yard because it is just you and the owner, and if anyone else does come up its either one of my riding friends who used to ride YO pony before she outgrew him, or its adults who are friends of our YO. But children under the age of 13 is ever up the yard.
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Our yard is not child free but we have not problems with the 'children' that are up here. One family have a tendancy to let their large family of 4 run a bit wild but kids are ok and parents will step in if you mention something to them.

Otherwise, we have lovely adorable 8yr old and her little Welsh pony, lots of teenagers who are all quite serious about their riding and plenty of helpers on the RS.

I think it isn't childfree you are looking for, but just a 'nicer' group - dont tar all kids with the same brush. Actually, I have noticed that the 'posher' the yard, the more rude/cocky the kids seem to be. Our yard is not smart at all and the kids seem to know that they have to put the work in and be good... the pony is a luxury that could easily be taken away if they weren't serious about riding.
 
There are a couple of kids on our yard but you would never know they were there, all seem really lovely and under control by their parents.

At last yard YO's daughter was erm interesting, as were her little friends - they were all about 9 or 10 ish.
 
I really think that unless YO is going to keep a good eye on them all day then kids really should have their mum around them at stables.

Especially with the holidays now im finding some the kids getting very cocky and mouthy. I also find kids when parents not around to keep them under control that they can be very annoying and time consuming. I dont mean it in a nasty way but when im up stables all days weekends all i get is amy can you do this, amy can you come and help me with that? I also find it very annoying when they all decide to come and hang around the school when doing work with Buddy. I know its kids for you put they are loud, giggly and they dont stand still! Distracts Buddy so much too!

Im not being offensive to anyone who does leave kids up yard but will putting all the work into Buddy i dont really like baby sitting either all day.
 
Kids should be treated the same as dogs.

If they can't behave or are not under control/supervision, leave them at home (or shut them in the horsebox). Although there aren't many on our yard, they can be a pain in the arse.

F x
 
LOL at baileyhoss! It's the flying round the jump school on elderly ponies or baby ponies in the boiling heat and at 4ft fences when Im trying to do dressage on my youngster that annoys me! They aren't too bad with me and are actually sweet girls, and good riders too! It's just I know they mouth off a bit to a few of the other liveries... but probably only because they got a mouthful first from adults interfering, and hell, we were all young once!
 
My livery yard is child free thank god - although not alltogether child free as we have a small riding school onsite but they are really well informed not to go near the livery block.

The youngest person on the yard is 15 and she is only allowed on the yard as she is my sharer, the yard were sick to death of people dumping their kids on the yard all day and rude teenagers so they got rid of them all - you now have to be over 18 to come on the yard and they are also very cautious of having too many people on the yard that are early - mid twenties too. This to some may seem crazy but I love it - I have no interest in supervising other peoples brats or being made to feel bad about myself via young peoples attitudes (I am only 24 myself lol). Most people on my yard are 30 - 50 and we are all different levels of riders - so a really good mix of people who have gotten along from day one, I have to say I would not leave my yard for the world. I can see why my yard do this and we currently have a long waiting list of people wanting to come to the yard for this reason, however grand kids and family members are most welcome but they must be supervised at all times, its safer this way and works well.

The last yard I was at was awful for kids running about - no offence to kids but the attitudes were awful and I was always having to wipe up a grazed knee or tidy up after them.
 
I don't think children are necessarily badly behaved at all, but a yard can be a dangerous place for unsupervised kids. I used to be a livery at a yard where the YO had young kids, about 3 and 5 years old. The older girl got herself in all sorts of trouble. She used to open the gate to the field on a regular basis to let her shetlands out, but they were kept with my mare who would bomb through, I don't know how she did not get killed. Another time she took her little brother to the jumps field and dunked him in the water jump which was quite deep and dangerous for the three year old.
 
Although I keep my horses at home. At a little livery yard near us the YO had to have her horse pts two weeks ago due to a young girl who went to help etc at yard thought she was being kind to two horses and fed them a handful of sugar beet. YO horse had to be pts and the other livery horse is still not right with its gut. I don't think anyone under the age of 16 should be unsupervised at stables livery yards etc. And yes I know there are alot of 13/14/15 year olds that know what they are doing but they seem to want to bring their friends etc. Sorry don't mean to offend any members under 16 but as above this girl THOUGHT she knew what she was doing.
 
Thankfully we have a child-free yard which we all stipulated we wanted it to stay when it first opened.

I'm not too keen on kids at all so suits me, and my friends, down to the ground!!!!
 
i think it depends on the child/children in question to be honest.
i have 5 kids and none of them would dream of being a nuisance, and i despise people who dont supervise thier children whilst on the yard!
a few years back i was on a yard, where there was a lady who had two kids who touched EVERYTHING!!!!
the mare i had at the time was not the easiest not most docile girl around, yet she would watch her eldest (all of about 5 yrs old) unbolt her door and wander in! the last straw for me was coming in one day to find my mare's white socks coloured in with green felt tip. i moved yards two days later.
where i am now most of us have children but we all have the same values, and we all collectively look after all the kids while they are around, and none of us would think twice about telling off your own or others off spring if they were to behave in anything less than an acceptable way!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Kids should be treated the same as dogs.

If they can't behave or are not under control/supervision, leave them at home (or shut them in the horsebox). Although there aren't many on our yard, they can be a pain in the arse.

F x

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL!!
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I certainly agree with that!
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I'm on a private yard now (only 5 horses) but no children and it is bliss - the last place I was at was horrendous (and they were the YO's kids!!!!!!) mainly because the eldest kept racing around on the quad bike to impress his mates (he was 10!!!!)
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I used to be on a yard where people brought their kids. It wasnt so bad if the child was interested in horses and had a pony, it was the siblings dragged along in hols who weren't supervised cos the mum was riding or teaching the little girl and the others then got bored and then caused probs. eg playing football hard against my poor horses stable wooden side wall, putting stones in the water buckets, kicking stones and gravel around, creating ditches and obstacles in the horses fields and leaving debris in the fields as well as feeding inappropriate stuff and always running suddenly just as nervous youngster was having something new done with it.

YO also not impressed with all this and asked owners not to bring them again (after several attempts at getting the parent to ge them to behave) - they left the yard soon after.

I think yards are better being either mainly geared to children or to adults, it peed me off being left to effectively supervise other peoples children, if Id wanted to do that I would have had kids! They were just bored but it caused danger and hassle for the other owners and they didnt pay livery fees to have that.
 
im still a kid myself and i think it depends on the sort of kids you mean
ive got tabs so it would be kinda awkward not being allowed up to tabs unsupervised as my family are not horsey
but i have to say a couple of the liveries have kids who are soooooo annoying 1 plays football whilst tabs is tied up and the woman says nothing but if tabs kicked him it would be my fault
another is very quiet
one is the same age as me and is mouthy and thinks she knows everything about horses
another is a year younger than me and is nice and no trouble

i know that some people find it difficult to look after kids and horses but if they have to be around horses they should be under control
 
I love having the kids on our yard. It's the holidays now, so they're around more than usual. This morning was great fun as the little ones were all heading off to mini camp and the older ones were going with them to help out. I think back to when I was a kiddie and how I loved to be around horses. Kids are the lifeblood of the sport and the future and should be encouraged.

They're not allowed on the yard unsupervised until they are 14, and not allowed in the fields unaccompanied until they're 16. We honestly don't have any problems with any of them, but then we're an incredibly friendly yard all round - no nastiness or bitchiness between anyone, everyone helps anybody else out. I think that helps and teaches the children by example how to respect each other and behave.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Kids should be treated the same as dogs.

If they can't behave or are not under control/supervision, leave them at home (or shut them in the horsebox).

[/ QUOTE ]

love it!! fortunatly there are no kids on our yard, im the baby at 22(almost) so its fine!!!

but agree, i do shut my dogs in the stable when i ride!!
 
lol I had to laugh, I have to shut my 3 year old in the stable when I am on my own and turning out!!!!!
The only children down our (small 3 horse) yard are mine, (all 4 of them) but I always make sure they dont annoy or get in the way. I would hope that people would tell me if they are a nuisance, thats my best tip. Tell the parents. Pehaps they dont realise how irritating their little darling are to others. - Unless the parents are the type that dont give a s**t, then it must be AWFUL. Yep, adult only yards would be a big thumbs up, not everyone likes lots of kids about - I would move to one myself if my kids were older! lol
 
I moved yards to go to a child-free yard.

Unsupervised children at yards is a pet hate of mine. The stables/farm is not a place for free baby sitting/get the kids out of your hair for a few hours, it can be a dangerous place esp with tractors and ploughing equipment about etc.

I do not have a problem with properly supervised children being on a yard at all, but object to arriving at the yard after a stressful job to try to unwind and there is screaming and shouting and running about which is dangerous and annoying for my horse and for me.
 
Bedlam - I couldn't agree more!

I'm only 20 myself, so still younger than the majority of any yard I have been at - and I wouldn't even claim to particularly like children... but the one type of child I can stand, is the genuinely enthusiastic pony loving kind.

Fortunately the yards I have been at have generally contained only that kind - and usually supervised too.

I was allowed to visit the yard unsupervised as soon as I had started at secondary school - I wasn't allowed to hack out on the roads on my own, but I was allowed to hack on the farm tracks and school alone. I was very serious about riding and horse care, and don't think I caused too much hassle for other liveries! At that point, the only other person my age was my schoolfriend who at the age of 12, was cycling a mile to the stables every morning before she went to school to muck out, and cycling up again afterwards to ride - she was absolutely, totally responsible in her routine. And of course, other liveries were kind enough to help us out when we looked like we were confused!

I can remember being very young quite clearly, and am more than happy to return the favour now for younger riders, am happy to explain what I'm doing, or show them how to do something with their pony, and show some enthusiasm when they have just come back from a show with rosettes from the gymkhana
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No, as my daughter is only 7 and still very novice. But I have moved her to a different riding school, she is a very quiet conciensious (sp) little girl, the yard where she was at, had some (older) ill mannered children. The atmosphere was often uncomfortable because of it, I didn't want her put off because of them, so we have found a lovely newly opened place where the children are only allowed to stay if there is no bitchyness etc. Consequently it is a friendly, pleasent place to be and she loves it. So I don't necessarily think stables need to be child free, but there should be hard and fast rules as to how they are expected to behave!!
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Some of the teenagers are badly behaved sometimes. To be fair one of the adults is far worse, never tidies up behind herself, breaks other peoples things and doesn't replace them, using other peoples wheelbarrows and leaves them full etc and is generally disrespectful. The kids are easy in comparison.
 
our yard has 3 teenagers on it (2 of which are mine ) and there are no problems. i have had to take my younger ones to the yard before now and i dread it. i have no qualms shutting them in a stable if they misbehave!
 
Much as I detest badly behaved children, most of us end up having kids at one point or another in our lives. It is a shame that the attitude of those who want child free yards makes it so difficult to look after horses when we do.

I have 4 kids, who although generally very well behaved, all have their 'noisy' days.....

Luckily, I am now on a yard myself, so dont have to worry about other people, but i have managed for years being made to feel like I shouldnt be on yards with my kids!

I agree that kids should be supervised at all times though, and that others shouldnt be left to 'babysit'......
 
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