Kids on yards

Hullabaloo

Hullabaloo

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One of the pony owners at our yard has 3 kids under 6 and they tend to get bored and want to play with their toys. I don't think its appropriate but keep quiet and try to think of it as a good education for my horse who tends to be very spooky.
Tonight I had my horse ready to lunge in his pessoa - so ropes everywhere for him to get tangled up in - and was walking down to the school when they decided to play with a football. It was given to them by one of the teenagers in front of her mum and the kids mum who were quite unconcerned. I don't think they were too impressed that I told the teenager off for being so silly.
Do other people have this issue with kids playing on the yard or am I being over sensitive?
 
we dont allow kids in the yard itself,but as i live here my boy does ride his bike down there and he is a pain sometimes !!!
but it our farm so a bit different but hes only allowed down there on bike when there is noone there !!!
 
we have kids on my yard and they drive me insane!!
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sreaming , running around etc! worst is there is one child whose mother drops said child off around 9am and doesnt pick child up till around 6/7pm!!
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child is left with food and told to get on with it!! would be ok if said child was 15/16 however child is 10!!!!!
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childs pony had suprise foal and now mare and foal are left as child cant handle the foal at all!!!
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when said child used my stable (without askin me!!!)(my horse is at stud but i'm still paying for my stable to keep that one) child didnt have a clue how to handle the foal was trying to drag the foal out of the stable without the mare on childs own!
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(foal is 3months old!!) YM did have some words with child but dont know if anything was said to the childs mum about this.
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ok rant over!!!!!
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Kids are kids guy's!!!
may b Y.O should put up some swings ect ect away from the stables. At the end of the day it's money in the pocket for the Y.o. Most stables have kids these days and kids do get fed up and want to explore. But I do agree, there are good kids & kids that misbehaves...
 
Parents need to be responsible for their childs behaviour on yards - it's not a creche.

Unattended children should be sold.
 
The younger kids aren't the problem, it's the older ones (10+) and the parents constantly bitching and trying to outdo eachother!
 
i speak as a parent of a 3 year old boy-if my son wasnt allowed on the yard it would be a major issue as i wouldnt be able to have a pony at all! i understand they can get annoying but try to understand from a parents view that they dont always have someone to care for the child whilst the yard chores are done. when my son is up the yard-i am on edge the whole time, contsntly having to say dont do this done do that and it can make my time miserable, mostly because i am thinking-oh god i am going to be kicked off if this or that happens. and it doesnt help reading this as believe me i feel bad as it is when my son is misbehaving due to boredom. i quite often take his little trike to play with but i agree that balls etc are silly. i certainly wouldnt let him run riot under horses feet etc!!!!
 
I know kids will be kids, but isn't there a time and place and shouldn't they be properly supervised? While giving kids facilities to play isn't a bad idea we are a small yard and have nowhere away from the horses to put swings or anythin so maybe it would be better if the parents took them to the park to play and brought them to the yard to do things with their pony.
As for selling unattended kids - love it but believe me no-one in their right mind would pay for these ones or their mother might would've sold them already!
 
My horse hates small loud children and I have had to yell at kids before to get out of the way as Charlie was lining up to kick the loudest 1 within range.

Kids playing about next to our school caused 1 of the other livery's horses to spook, jump sideways and dump her on the floor. She was hurt and her glasses broken.

A yard is not a playground/creche, and the rest of us should not have to live with the hazard of your kids, or the implicit responsibility (finding them playing on top of a high pile of haylage, is it my responsibility to tell them off?).
 
i dont have a problem with kids on the yard, providing they do what you tell them to (ie get out of the way and shut up when you tell them!) i work at a stud, so i think its good for the youngsters to get used to things like kids on bikes etc plus its great experience for the kids who are wanting to learn more about horses-i spent last week with a couple of kids showing them how we start backing the youngsters and they even got to help! i would have killed for that oppotunity at their age!
 
Now I feel really guilty and I don't mean to make you feel bad and I'm sure you supervise your son properly. I just worry that my horse is going to injure himself or one of the kids if they are allowed to do silly things around them and I would've expected one of the adults to have more sense than to let them play with a ball.
On the plus side I never have any problems with my horse when he meets bikes, prams etc when we're hacking (crisp bags are a different matter of course) so maybe you could hire your son out to help with spooky horses.
 
We have two young uns on our yard, I think they are great. They come up with their parents, ride their ponies, they are polite and nice and if Im honest I enjoy chatting to them! I quite agree though that there's a line which must be kept when it comes to kids and horses, a lot of the time they simply dont mix, and its not the kids fault or the parents, its just a sh*tty circumstance..
 
I think that they are ok as long as they are safe and not being dangerous, the kids on our yard no to stop when there is a horse about, and they go off away from the yard and play in a woody bit so it tends to be ok.
 
We have a six year old on our yard and she is (usually) a good kid! Fantastic with the horses, real natural! My 16.3hh follows her like a puppy and if she tells him off he looks geniunely hurt!!
However.....
We just had 6 people move away from our yard (thank god!) two were 13/14 and one 17 (who behaved 13!) they used to have screaming competitions, kick footballs, ride bikes all inside the barn where our stables are, all with their parents around! The parents were just as bad, leaving mess and letting their dogs run riot!
Just thankful they are gone!
Think its potluck, you get good ones and bad ones!
When i was young was so pleased to be near horses was as quiet as a mouse and would of done whatever i was told! Honest!!!
 
Never mind the kids, what about the grannies?!!! A couple of months back someone's granny decided to park herself in the stands of the outdoor school to do her crochet or knitting or something. Fine but she decided to remove the crochet/knitting from it's plastic bag just as my OH was riding past. Horse jumped in the air, shot sideways and left OH behind.

She didn't even notice he'd fallen off and just carried on, like it was normal!

Seriously though, stabling horses at a riding school's livery yard means there's a lot of kids. Most of the time it's okay apart from on pony club nights when they dash about like mad things and scream at the top of their voices. They also have junior holidays throughout the summer, so it's never peacefull.

Most of the kids with ponies on our yard are great. They can get a bit loud from time to time, but the parents are worse!
 
The last yard I was at didn't allow children under 10 and no one under 16 was allowed unsupervised by an adult/parent. Now I have my horses at home, I do have two small grandchildren (2yrs & 4) who come up and see their mini ponies. They are not allowed to run about near the horses, but they do tear about doing all the things that young children do, which is great for the horses as they don't turn an eye when we are hacking if small children tear round corners on bikes/rollerskates/scooters etc. Football is not appropriate, and neither is the young child with the mare and foal.
 
At the end of the day I think it is the parents' responsibility to ensure their child's safety at the yard. IMO children running around a yard unsupervised are not safe. By way of necessity, my daughter, now 4, has come down the yard with me to do the horses at tea-time since she was 5 weeks' old. I am sure people think I am a right Hitler because I have her on a very tight rein (not literally now!) and am constantly aware of where she is and what she is doing. The result is that now she stays where I can see her, be it in the stable if I am mucking out/bedding down or within 10 yards of where I am if I am dealing with the horse outside. She gets shouted at if she runs about and if there are other horses about she sits on an up-turned bucket at my horse's head and doesn't move. At the end of the day, apart from the fact that I don't want her annoying other people, her safety in what is undeniably a dangerous environment is my responsibility and you don't get a second chance at life.
 
Horseymum, I was very much like you when my son was younger. If he came to the yard with me he knew he had to behave or help or he wouldn't come back again!

My major concern would always be the safety of free range young children who aren't really aware of the potential for harm, either from items they find around the yard, or from horses. I have to admit to flickers of irritation towards noisy children too, if I wanted to hear them screaming and shouting I would go to a playground, as it is I go to the yard for peace and quiet.
 
Children on the yard are one of my pet peeves. They're not supposed to be there without an adult, and they race around the horses screaming, regularly help themselves to (my) stuff from the tack room and are generally a liability.
Even their parents are clueless; many of them just leave the children to their own devices and they create just as much inconvenience as if their parents weren't there.
I am aware that there are plenty of well-behaved children with sensible parents out there... they're just not at my yard!
 
well my children have a pony at our yard, they tend to stay out the way or they sometimes ask the adults things about their horses.

i think only 3 people on our yard do not have children so its not a big deal here.
 
I have 2 boys , one aged 2 and a half and the other nearly 7 ( he has his pony at the yard ) ... Both my kids are well behaved, they dont get to run riot around the yard .

Like a previous poster Im constantly looking out for both boys and making sure they arent up to mischieve .
If I wasnt allowed the boys at this yard I may not have my horses either .


And yes kids will be kids .
 
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