I’m with you 1,000% @tabula_rashah . I can’t believe people are saying it’s a totally voluntary situation for kids if they’re being verbally abused in a lesson. How often have kids felt pressured to shut up when their self-esteem is being shat upon?
Even for an adult, I don’t like to see a person with low self-esteem being berated and I think they should be told it’s wrong.
Psychological harm and emotional abuse is a real thing.
I have noted in my experience that some coaches are overly complimentary when it is undeserved, some encourage horse abuse when it is really a rider problem, some have an abusive-to-the-rider style and some are genuinely patient and helpful to riders even if the riders are resistant to help.
I agree with LCDR to move to a barn where you are happy because being at a barn where you must watch or receive psychic abuse is not good for your psyche. Find a barn where you can have your own choice of trainer so if there’s a problem you can find one that is better suited to your happiness and goals.
Just go.
I would add that I often enough see parents taking to their kids in pretty awful ways as well. It’s not fun being a kid much of the time.
I’d need to know more about what the coach is doing or saying that approaches “abusive.”
I think riding coaches have to be loud and shout (unless they have the cool mic and earpiece thingies) simply because if the student is cantering around on a horse in a big arena with a helmet on, trying to pay attention to the horse and the coach, sometimes it takes a pretty loud, shouting voice to reach the student. Lord knows I spent my teen years being shouted at. My parents paid good money for me to be shouted at. I learned so much, and happily went to every lesson and endured the shouting because that’s just how it was. Most of the time it was literally just the need to be loud so I could hear them. I was a kid that always tried hard to do what I was told, so I rarely (if ever?) to berated or whatever. But if I was failing to comprehend or do what the coach was telling me, the shouting did get more intense until my teenage brain engaged and realized I was doing it wrong.
Also, sometimes not following the instructions of the coach can mean putting yourself at risk. If you’re jumping and the coach is telling you to sit back or put your leg on or whatever, it’s usually in an attempt to see you and your horse safely over a fence. Riding is dangerous, and I could see that coaches might get a bit animated and intense when someone’s kid is on a 1,000-pound animal and could be injured if they don’t listen.
But all of that said, if the students are minors and the parents are okay with how the coach teaches, it’s really their choice. And obviously, adult students can choose if they want to pay for this sort of coaching or not. I think it’s really each person’s choice, and just because one person thinks this coach borders on abusive doesn’t mean the next person agrees. I had a coach like that. I loved him when I rode with him as a teen and young adult. But a lot of middle-aged women couldn’t stand him because they said he was mean. I thought he was fun. *shrug
My first riding instructor was a screamer. It was a real testament to my love of horses and riding that I endured the verbal abuse and kept coming back for more, but it was not a productive learning environment and who knows how much faster I and my fellow lesson kids would have progressed in a less stressful more pleasant environment. Fortunately, eventually the screamer damaged her vocal cords and was forced to quit. She was replaced by a lovely young woman who, somehow, managed to successfully teach and produce good young riders without yelling, screaming, or belittling her students.
Honestly, I’m a little shocked at how many people posting here seem to think it’s OK to scream, shout, berate, and belittle students. Does it happen? Yes. Do coaches of other sports and even parents do it? Yes. But that doesn’t make it OK.
Now, as an adult in charge of my own life, the first time a trainer screams at me and treats me disrespectfully is the last time I ever ride with them. If I’m taking lessons, it’s because I have a sincere desire to learn and improve. If I’m not doing what you’re telling me to do, it’s because I am physically unable to do so or I don’t understand what you’re asking. Yelling at me isn’t going to accomplish anything besides deeply pissing me off.
OP, you’re going to have to do whatever feels right to you. No one else can make that decision because we each have our own reactions to, and tolerance for, what you’re experiencing and observing. Like I already said, I don’t put up with that crap. But that’s me.
I have been quite firm with a student before. Someone who didn’t know the context of my history with this student might have considered me out of line. I have also been ripped upside and down by a coach when I was in my teens, and every time that happened I 100% deserved it. Someone who didn’t see the whole thing might not have known why I was being treated the way I was.
I need to know more/hear some examples before I’d consider anything abusive. Some people are extra super sensitive.
Regardless, if you’re not happy, move.
Where did you read that it was “ok”? A couple of people said they weren’t as bothered by that style of teaching. But most did not indicate that it was “ok”. And we don’t have specific examples of what is happening and how extreme, which is fine if OP doesn’t want to out herself and the coach.
What people are saying is that it isn’t OP’s place to intervene on behalf of people that she says she barely knows, or doesn’t know at all.
Do you advise going up to a coach who is teaching a lesson to someone else, a lesson that doesn’t involve you, and telling the coach to STFU because they are over the line? Do you advise taking the coach aside at another time and coaching the coach on teaching style for lessons that aren’t yours?
I’m not sure where the idea comes from that somehow each of us can control other peoples’ universes. If we decide that it is warranted. Without asking them.
That doesn’t mean that the behavior is ok. It means that someone else’s business is their business, not ours.
Where did I say anyone ought to be intervening on behalf of anyone?
Where did I advise confronting a coach over their behavior?
Where did I say it was possible to control other peoples’ universes? I believe that my final paragraph, in fact, said exactly the opposite of that.
You sure read a lot into what I posted. Did I perhaps hit a nerve? Hit a little too close to home with my criticisms?
As for where I read that it was OK, there were absolutely posts here that, from my reading, stated or implied that shouting, screaming, and berating were OK - that sometimes kids needed to be yelled at. You didn’t read it the same way? That’s fine. But just because you see things differently doesn’t make my interpretation wrong.
You need to yell in an emergency. You need to do whatever it takes to keep horse and rider alive. Say the rider is noodling into another horses jump line or going backwards over an oxer or letting the horse step on the reins or hauling on the horses face over the jump or going off into a daydream. Coach needs to yell and get a response.
That’s not berating. But it is yelling.
Shouting is a fairly normal thing in my experience, trying to communicate over long distance. Screaming, mmm seen that a bit, once persons screaming is another’s shouting. Berating and belittling is where I start to struggle, calling people stupid, telling them if they can’t do “x” whatever x is, then they can get off. Oh I don’t know, there is problems a fine line between abuse, and pushing to get the best. To be clear, zero worries about physical abuse of any kind, unless being told to get off and trot your horse in hand around the arena because you didn’t listen is physical abuse.
Maybe I’m just a shrinking violet, maybe it’s not my business but I think there is a better way to encourage kids than making them feel bad. I do find it interesting that so many don’t find it an issue, maybe toxicity is part of learning to ride, but I hope not. I do not pay coaches to be nice to me, but to improve me. One of the things I Ike about the current situation is that when she says “good” I know it’s good. For now I will just manage myself, and my own situation, and stay out of the way when kids are being taught.
Can you avoid sitting and watching? I don’t know if you mean sitting on your horse, in a group lesson, while the trainer coaches another student, or if you mean hanging around by the arena before/after your lesson, watching another student’s lesson.
I do get your difficulty with the situation. I’m of the generation who were taught we were supposed to grow up to “do something to make the world a better place.” *
Ha! Sometimes now I feel the best way I can make MY world a better place is to spend as little time as possible out “in the world” trying to change it in any way at all.
I hate being screamed at, by anyone, for anything. I hate the person who is screaming, when they’re screaming. I can’t shut them up, or change them, so I leave.
I’m sorry you’re stuck in this situation. As you say, it’s not your place to speak up. I’m glad there is another person there who is aware of the trainer’s behavior and is the trainer’s friend. Let them try if they want to.
And don’t put any “guilt” for crying on yourself, taking the blame for it. Crying is never anything to have to apologize for.
*Do young people these days also think they are supposed to “make the world a better place”?
Aren’t we all supposed to try and do that? You leave the barn cleaner than you found it, you give random compliments to people to make their day better. You don’t pollute, you pick up your trash, you try and leave a place better than when you arrived. Unless we are trying to make the world a better place, what’s the point?
. true.
But that shouldn’t be happening every lesson or during the entire lesson
If this is the explanation for all the yelling, ya need a new coach.
It absolutely IS her business.
This is a prime example of why safe sport exists.
If the trainer is being abusive, SOMEONE has to recognize and report it.
This morning I’m catching up on my backlog of Chronicle of the Horse issues. I’m reading the pony issue and found this in an article by Aaron Vale.
This is what I’m talking about.
Yes. I absolutely agree. I will not ride with a shouty coach. I found all children’s sports instruction appalling as a child, and I certainly also get triggered around this stuff as an observer.
My point is just that if you barely know the kids or parents, and none of them seem bothered by it, and the behavior falls short of calling the police (I doubt this lesson barn is USEF affiliated so SS is not in play), then you can’t do anything and shouldn’t be beating yourself up over having a duty to transform the situation.
But the OP said that some of the students were reduced to tears.
I’d agree that if the parents know that the coach is making their kids cry and the parents seem to be alright with it, it can be difficult to intervene.
But if the parents don’t know, then a heads-up to them is a nice thing to do. Most kids are going to internalize the shouting–“if the coach is shouting at me, I must be an idiot.”
And shouting (in frustration or anger) at a student is so very rarely called for. Even at a moment of danger, shouting will often make the situation worse.
Another point that many posters have made, though, is that if the OP is appalled by the behavior–either directed to herself as a student or at other students–she should stop taking lessons with this person and possibly move barns.
When things start to go downhill, they often keep rolling.
Maybe this is what is making this hard for me, let’s just say from the youngest memory, that was front and centre “if I’m being shouted at, I’m the idiot” It’s left me with the inability to give answers sometimes, as I get stuck on trying to decide which is the least worse reply, because I know I don’t have the right one. As for parents, some seem to be OK, but one was nearly in tears, and saying “it’s hard to watch when your child is being called an idiot” but they have been attending lessons for a while, so either this is new, or they are thinking it’s ‘normal’
This is why we have SafeSport. If this falls under a USEF discipline (assuming this is USA based, IOC of it is not) and you truly feel you are witnessing abuse, report it:
So it’s totally understandable that you are being triggered because of your personal experiences and memories. That’s perfectly OK and normal.
But you need to have some boundaries. Very often we can get triggered by things and want to rescue our past selves from the issue and help other people because we identify with them. That’s actually very dangerous because you can become over invested in their situation and also misinterpret it.
I would suspect that any parent who said that is already quietly on the hunt for another barn. Also when the parent says that, that is the time to say “yes, the coach is starting to lose it and this looks counter productive.” Give support when it is being asked for. In that chat, you could also say “do you know if there are other lesson barns around?” Also, “I’ve been in lessons a long time and this isn’t normal or useful.” Give support where you have an opening
If you didn’t chat at the time go back to lesson mum the next time you see her and say this. It sounds like she may have boundary issues too and not know how to stick up for the child.
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