Learning to be assertive / confident

[Caramac71]

We are looking to buy a horse for our daughter, she's nearly 16. While she will be doing all the riding and most of the handling, and she is confident and competent at both, we did agree that it needed to be something I could also handle on the ground.

Daughter wants a young horse, she has lots of help from trainer and YO, and we have taken a mare on trial. It's very early days and the horse was looking very stressed and unhappy at first. Totally understandable as she is young, has never been on a livery yard and always been in the same small herd. She's done nothing awful, she just gets a bit panicky at times, and every day she is settling more.

Ridden-wise she is doing well, in fact she is better all the time she's being ridden and kept busy. She is a bit spooky but we knew she would be and she soon settles. Daughter is so far unfazed by it all.

But I am constantly on edge and worrying, and really not much help. Yesterday we decided to practise loading as we have side loading, rear facing box and she's only been in forward facing trailer. I was completely useless and we couldn't load her. Someone else came to help and she was on in seconds.

Im not a confident person at anything, but I do know that I need to get over this for my daughters sake. The mare responds well to confident handling, I know at the moment I would make her worse as I am more stressed than she is.

i think I probably need to ask trainer to come down one day when daughter isn't around, and help me learn how to handle her when yard is quiet and there's no one watching. But I am embarrassed about asking for help.

Meanwhile how can I make myself more assertive and confident when I'm feeling so anxious? I need to get over this as I feel like I'm spoiling the pleasure for my daughter and making an issue out of something that's not there.

And it's nothing the horse has done, I'm possibly slightly more anxious than normal as she is a bit stressed and jumpy, but I know I would be like this with anything. I've been the same with her loan ponies but they've been smaller and older and more experienced, plus already settled in an environment, so daughter hasn't needed much back up from me.

 

[Dry Rot]

A wise old lady once told me, "Nothing can be frightened for ever". I've remembered that many times when training nervous animals. It certainly applies to humans too. Believe it or not, I was at one time a shy retiring anti-social soul, but a girl friend pointed me towards a teaching job. Going and teaching a classroom of kids every day did great things for my confidence. Are there no others at your yard you could help with their horses? If you want to get more confidence, you need to get more exposure. It's really as simple as that. As for being embarrassed about asking, just do it in a quiet way so a rejection won't be hurtful. A lot of people don't want to be helped. That's fine and their decision. Maybe the YO can advise? Start by just speaking to more people about horses. Make it a rule that you speak to one new person every day and ask a simple horsey question. Every journey starts with a single step.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

i think I probably need to ask trainer to come down one day when daughter isn't around, and help me learn how to handle her when yard is quiet and there's no one watching. But I am embarrassed about asking for help.

What a good idea: to get trainer to come down one day and go through a few things with you. I don't think you should feel at all embarrassed about asking for help, in fact recognising that you need help is a strength and not a weakness and shows that you really want to become more confident.

All of us - even those that have been riding and been around horses from an early age, recognise that there's always something to learn. A new approach, new ideas, or perhaps a new take on old ideas even.

With my current horse, I needed some professional help with him when I had him as I just didn't have the experience to deal with his complexities. I sought professional help (from an old school-mate actually!) - and it was absolutely invaluable, and eye-opening. She helped me to deal with my horse's issues, and not only that opened my eyes to a whole new way of dealing with horses and this has improved my confidence not just in the saddle but on the ground as well. I am aware that I now look at any horsey problem in a totally different way; rather than thinking oh heck I can't cope with this...... I tend now to think OK so if I were the horse, what am I saying in this situation??

If you can find any "equine" workshops or whatever to go to in your area, then I'd suggest you go along. This will help you to formulate your own opinions and watch how other people do things. Not that you have to agree with everything that is done, far from it - maturity and gaining confidence is all about having the assertiveness to actually stand and look back at something you see, and disagree with it, and then know WHY you disagree with it, if that makes sense (hope so!). So if Monty Roberts, or Parelli, or Intelligent Horsemanship, or Michael Peace even, is coming near your town - then I would suggest you go along and see how you find it. It will open your mind to new ideas and ways of doing things, but like I say, you can always disagree!!! If you hate it and it winds you up, then good! because gaining in confidence in your own abilitiies will also help you to develop a critical mind so that you stand back and look at other trainers' methods, and be confident in your own opinions as to whether that is something you'd want to take on board, or not.

Also...... having mentioned Michael Peace: do have a look on his website and/or get one of his books - as he has developed a "Think Equus" philosophy which you particularly might find helpful, and he offers some very practical (rather than airey fairey!) advice on how to deal with practical issues.

Go for it!!! You will be doing the best thing ever. You will enjoy it, you will learn new things - and re-visit old skills. You will gain in confidence, experience, and empathy with horses. You will rapidly become so proficient that you will be in danger of overtaking your daughter!!!

Just do it!!! You'll be glad you did, honest.

Give the trainer a ring and fix up a day/time................. just do it, TODAY!!!

 

[hayinamanger]

What a lovely mum you are

You don't say how much experience you have had with horses, so a young horse in a new yard, nervous and unsettled, is not a great place for you to begin to gain more confidence, you won't help each other at all.

As Dry Rot says, start with the YO, cards on the table, she will already know that you have confidence issues, and will be glad you have asked for advice. There may be a horse or pony there that you can get more handilng experience with, grooming, leading etc.

Most of all, try not to worry, it sounds like your daughter has plenty of confidence, she will not be expecting too much of you, so don't put yourself under pressure to be the perfect horsey mum. Remember, it's supposed to be fun.

 

[Red-1]

I would second to get the trainer to help when your daughter is not there. I am not in your area (so not touting for business) and this is a service I offer, to learn handling. I have also seen many people change completely when they learn the assertiveness without need for aggression, and they blossom.

You may well find that with the right person helping you, then you gain as much as your daughter from having a new horse. It is a revelation how much body posture, positivity and small changes make such a difference. The key is finding the right person to help, someone who understands that you do not wish to become a "hard woman" but just to peacefully and assertively get about your day.

I echo the thoughts of MJATBTight, good ways to learn assertive, quiet and positive thinking.

Good luck!

 

[Pinkvboots]

You sound a lovely person, agree with the others get the yo or a trainer to help you with some ground work, even maybe starting with a quieter horse then when you feel happy start handling your Daughters horse, we all have to start somewhere and if you have not had much experience around horses it can be scary at first.

I love your name Caramac its one of my favourite chocolates, and I am also born in 71

 

[Caramac71]

Thank you all for some very good suggestions. I will pluck up the courage and ask for help, either from trainer or YO (who is also an instructor) - both are lovely and I know they will help if I ask. I've actually been around horses all my life, in that I rode in a riding school for about 10 years, and daughter has been riding all her life, helping at a pony sanctuary since age 7 and loaning for the last 3 years. But I've always been on the outside, not involved in the handling of other peoples horses, and when horses prat around I get nervous and think 'I could never do that' when I watch someone else just get on with it. We are just returning our loan pony and I am mostly happy to handle her as I know her inside out and what she's likely to do.

I'd got myself in a panic about taking new horse out today. Because shes on trial for a month we want to see how she copes with being loaded and taken to a different venue. We had planned to take her to a rally at a nearby yard but I wasn't confident that daughter and I would be able to load, unload, tack up at other end, etc by ourselves if horse was stressed by it. I know others around us want to help and advise, but I was feeling that if horse coped badly with today, she would be judged harshly for it. Whereas daughter is doing great with her at home, we are only on day 5 and horse is starting to settle, and I wouldn't blame her if she didn't cope well with being taken to a new environment so soon. I felt like I had a lot of pressure from other people of what we had to do. But after posting yesterday it helped me clear things up in my own mind and I decided not to take her today. We have another 3 weeks or more we can take her out, so I would be daft to put pressure on myself and her to do it so soon.

If we had already bought her I wouldn't dream of taking her out in her first week. And I remembered back to previous loans where daughter had a least a month of getting to know them at home before we went anywhere else. These were ponies that were with their owners, in their own environment, much older, more experienced, etc. and we took our time with them. Added to that, at the time we had no transport so someone else was in charge of that, we had help with loading, an extra pair of hands when we got there and no pressure.

So plan now is to enlist the help of one person who will be on hand to help us load, travel, tack up, etc on our first few outings. We are thinking of just popping down to a local venue that has dressage on and asking if we can just bring horse into the warm up at a quiet time. Stay long enough that she settles and it's a positive experience, then go back home. Or if not the dressage, then either clear round jumping or book a lesson at a different venue. Just something quiet and low key, with someone there for back up so that I am more relaxed and not causing extra tension.

And in time, with the confidence I will hopefully gain from handling sessions and from getting to know horse better, we should gradually get to the stage where we can do it without help.

I feel a million times better today, now I have a plan and I've broken it down into manageable chunks. I'm really grateful for all your advice.

 

[MiJodsR2BlinkinTite]

Fantastic! Seconding what "Red-1" says above. She said what I was trying to say, far better and with far less words!

The word "blossom" is the key.......... methinks daughter will soon find that her new-style "horsey mum" is forging way ahead and hooning along like a pro!

Well done OP. Take it in small chunks, tell yourself that the word "panic" is merely an "unplanned event" which you already possess the skills to deal with.

 

[oldie48]

I come from a completely unhorsey background but had ridden at a RS for about a year when I was 12. Roll on 40 years and I found myself with a very keen rider as a daughter, by the time she was 11 I recognised that she was much better than I was at everything to do with horses and riding and I was quite happy to admit it to her and why not? yes, get a good instructor to help you but do it with your daughter so you are both doing things the same way. share your concerns and lack of confidence with her and let her help you or learn together. As mothers we don't have to be perfect/know everything etc, I found allowing my daughter to know she did some things better than me was great for her confidence and very good for our relationship and meant I didn't always have to be the "leader". I bought a new horse a few weeks ago and daughter (now grown up) came to stay for a week to help me. We had a good laugh over me using her as my "crash dummy". When we hacked out and I had a bit of a problem and wanted to get off, she wouldn't let me and talked me through what was a minor crisis of confidence, she said it was quite like old times!