Kids riding lessons - Rant!

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loobiloo

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My daughter is 5 and having riding lessons (doing well - in a few weeks she'll be better than me!) but the place is driving me mad. Was going to get a pony for her but don't think teaching her myself will be successful and can't afford pony and lessons. So just lessons for now. Every little thing is driving me mad though- like the saddle is slipping, the stirrups aren't level, the teacher changes between lessons so although she can trot round on her own they don't know so she goes 2 steps back and 1 step forward from lesson to lesson. I tell them every lesson about all the things that are wrong and I'm sure they hate me! Tell me it's not just me! Despite this I don't want to move places because the ponies are all really safe and it's the only indoor school around us! Raaaaaa Sorry rant over!
 
Quite agree - it's not good enough but it is hard to get good staff, which is probably the main reason for most of the problems. How much are the lessons out of interest? Could you consider a pony share somewhere and have a short private lesson every other week?

I taught my daughter myself and only got to the problem stage when she hit the dreaded teens and started to moan if I made her ride do anything difficult like without stirrups. So now I pay!
 
My girls were older than yours when I got them a pony. They were 8 and 10. But they had the basics of riding. They could rise to the trot and do a canter in an arena.

Well getting them a pony was the best thing ever. Riding every day (or 4 or 5 times a week) brought them on no end. Before I knew it they were cantering out on a hack and jumping small jumps etc.

AND it cost me less to keep a pony per week that it did to pay for 2 kids lessons. Well less in money but more in time obviously.

3 years on and the youngest has given up riding but the oldest has a bigger pony and is planning to start Trailblazers SJ and BSJA, and has been hunting.
 
I am sure we are all as bad!!!I know for a fact i will be the parent from hell when they try teach my lad to ride(wen he finally gets to 6 that is
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,bloody insurance companies)!!However i do feel because we ride to a good standard you will always pick fault with someone else teaching your child(unless you not there of course,lol,OPTION???)If you can buy ya own pony and teach yaself and it is a viable option go for it!!!
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I have to say (in my opinion) I have had a few kids come to me that have only ridden in a riding school and sometimes it makes me wonder what the parents have spent their money on.

Seeing as you are horsey yourself I bet you could find a little outgrown pony somewhere whose owner would be delighted to have a little girl take it out at weekends. Going for fun hacks gives little kids a really good grounding and don't forget Spring is round the corner when you will be able to get her out so much more.

Good luck
 
I think one of the most difficult problems is staff turnover - we had a similar problem when daughter was at a riding school. It got to the stage where they seemed to have a different instructor each week and the children weren't making any progress.
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It was at that point that we made the decision to buy a pony.
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Thanks I'm glad I'm not the only one! The lessons are 17 quid ago in a group but there's never more than 4 kids and she enjoys it more with the other kids there as they have a giggle. Ive spoken with my OH cos it's driving me mad and he's said give her a couple more months but I think I might look into sharing. There are loads of other stables around us but none indoor which is a pain because I know at 5 she's not going to want to ride in the pouring rain (and as a bad mum I don't want to stand and watch in the rain either!) so I suppose I'll have to put up and shut up!(...and keep my eye out for a pony...which may mean I'll be living at the yard because I won't be allowed home
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i wouldnt worry, at least your child actually gets to stay in the saddle!

when i was learning to ride properly, when i was 6/7, i had just learnt to canter and the riding school bought a young pony. they stuck me on him every lesson and within 10 minutes he would have had me off at least once. He wouldnt let anyone stay on him for more than 10 minutes yet they would stick me (a novice at the time) on him!

i was bucked off nearly every lesson (once a week) for about 6 months, despite my mum begging them not to put me on him. she even threatened to move me to a different stables but they put me on a better one for 1 lesson then went back to the bronc.

i moved in the end to the yard i am at now, but after the riding school it has taken 6 years to get my confidence back, well just a little bit less cause im ok now. without Re, my riding teacher now, i would not be riding, and would be a very nervous person, especially with horses (i was kicked, bitten, barged, stepped on and headbutted by the pony)

so it goes to show not all approved riding schools are safe! the one i went to had all the necessary qualifications, riding testx and courses, some good teachers and a huge indoor arena. but still it threatend the only hobby i had - horses
 
What? They must have been sadists! It's a wonder you ever rode again after that! Where I used to teach the instructors would get a b****king if one person fell off during the whole day. It was safety first, fun second. Think perhaps you should have gone somewhere else, no riding school should do that to a child.
 
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What? They must have been sadists! It's a wonder you ever rode again after that! Where I used to teach the instructors would get a b****king if one person fell off during the whole day. It was safety first, fun second. Think perhaps you should have gone somewhere else, no riding school should do that to a child.

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its safety first NOW, but at that riding school it wasnt 7 yrs ago!

still ride past that yard sometimes, sends a shiver down my spine when i do!
 
The main thing is that your daughter is enjoying it, which she seems to be. Can you not help to get her on, so you do the girth, stirrups etc? Then grab the instructor if it's a new one and tell them she has been riding for xx weeks and that she can do rising trot etc? I sometimes stand in at my local riding school for another instructor and I always ask the kids what they can do, but little ones rarely speak up so you end up doing the basics just to be safe.
 
I have complete sympathy - I gave up taking my daughter to riding lessons after I had to sit for half an hour actually biting my lip as a new instructor stood in the middle of the arena too lazy to move her ar*e to acutally help my daughter control the pony she was on - it was eating, walking about where it pleased or just standing there (daughter is 5) and all she was doing was standing in the middle shouting instructions. I would rather teach her the basics myself although it gives me a heart attack every now and then when I think something is going to go wrong. You don't necessarily have to buy a pony - we have been really lucky to be able to borrow someones redundant pony - you could try putting an add in the local paper for one to share - often little ponies don't get used nearly enough and people are glad of someone else to take some interest in them. Then you could look at affording the occasional lesson, and enjoy things like going out on mini hacks
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At her age I wouldn't think twicw about teaching her yourself.

My daughter only got stroppy with me when I started to get stroppy with her, and then I recognised the fact that I was being a horrid pushy parent and handed over the reins (so to speak!) to someone else.

I don't reckon 5 yr olds learn much from a riding school - take her out and have fun hacking etc. There's bound to be someone's old pony in a field doing nothing somewhere that the owners would be delighted could be used.
 
It is a shame that this is the case, one alternative to the stirrup issue is to maybe get your own and then you'll know that they are level. Or failing that move elsewhere, or teach her yourself because what your getting at the moment is not good enough for the price that your getting!
 
I have to agree with Bedlam - I really don't think most 5 year olds get much from riding schools, as they generally aren't big enough or coordinated enough to respond well to the style of instruction you get in most schools. My daughter loved her lessons, and could steer herself around the school and do rising trot, but given that the pony was MILES too big for her, that was about the extent of what she could do. I stick her up on the back of the Share Mare from time to time and she LOVES it (has been bragging to all her little friends at school that she rides a horse - oops
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), so I am seriously thinking about trying to find a share of a small pony for her to simply pootle about and have fun on at the weekends.
 
As a riding instructor of little kids myself, it is easy if you are madly busy and on your 5th lesson of the day to suddenly notice 10mins into a lesson that stirrups you thought were fine, aren't level... I have done it occasionally
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am very careful now about taking the extra 5mins to fix stirrups but you are juggling time to mount against time being taught especially in group lessons so it is hard because you don't want kids sitting around for 5 mins on their ponies whilst you adjust everyone's stirrups.

Not defending this practice at all, it is unproffesionally to let a kid go round with odd stirrups but one thing that can really help is a knowledgable mum who comes into the school and helps her child onto the pony and does the stirrups - that way I just have to check them and can help the other kids on board.

Just a very straightforward practical suggestion of how you could help your situation.

RE saddle slipping - that would worry me. It has happened occasionally to me with a new school pony but the result has always been 'OK that saddle doesn't fit, we'll find a new one that does immediately'. if it is happening again and again I would be rather annoyed if I was you.

the lead rein v. on your own thing is very difficult. some instructors are more cautious than others and you don't always know if the pony your child is on is having a 'fresh' day. However, I always try to make sure that a child who has been off the leadrein stays off the leadrein - even if they have someone walking next to them but not leading them. Perhaps you need to make sure that they write in the diary that your child is off the lead rein so the instructors (whoever it is) knows what sort of pony to choose and how to structure the lesson.

It all sounds rather haphazard to me at your RS - if you have tried explaining and things still aren't changing, I would think about moving.
 
Southwestwhippet - when she first started I did go in to help her on and check the girth etc mainly for her confidence but after a few lessons they hinted at me to go and wait in the gallery to watch. At first I thought fair enough maybe I'm being an over paranoid and over bearing mum as you do occasionally see (my mum was one of those shouting at me when I was trying to listen to the instructor and it was so embarrassing!) but with hindsight I think they took offense at me going to help...so maybe I should move her...
 
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what your getting at the moment is not good enough for the price that your getting!

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am I paying too much? what does everyone else pay?
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We charge £7 for 1/2 an hour and £14 for an hour, and then for under 5's we do a 'donation' ride with just a box for them to pop a pound in...

We encourage parents to come in and help if they wish, esp with the younger children who may need their legs holding or something at the beginning, and certainly a parent helping getting girths tight and stirrups even is always welcomed, esp as it can be very hectic at change over!! However parents shouting at their children is discouraged as it can distract or at worse completely put off/embaress the child
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We also swap the children and ponies around so some weeks they will be on an easy pony which they can ride off the lead rein, othertimes they may be on one that needs to be led - we find it improves them greatly to be able to ride different ponies and makes them much more competent confident riders in the long run
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Also because not every pony is perfect it makes it more fair to swap them around every once in a while, then every child gets a go at riding the one who will canter beautifully round the school at the drop of a hat...
 
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