Forcing child to ride horses for "work ethic"

[TheDBYC]

@Equkelly

This type of parenting drives me absolutely nuts. Children are their own people with their own interests and passions and deserve to be treated as such. They are not your accessories. They are not extensions of your ego. They are not your doll you can just dress up and make them do whatever you want. If grandma likes horses, grandma can go take lessons herself. This kid probably has other things that she would be excited about and enjoy. Maybe it’s music, maybe it’s art, maybe it’s dance, swimming, parkour, rock climbing, soccer, or whatever but it’s definitely not horses. Kids should be free to be their own people. Love the kid you have not the kid you wish you had.

Amen As a music teacher I despised parents who insisted it had to be X instrument. “I played X instrument growing up & I want little Johnny to as well!” Why? So he, too, can can dread playing X quit as soon as humanly possible, only to insist that his own kids play it 30 years down the road? The ones who really made me hit DEFCON 5 were the ones where the child had some sort of learning disability that made every second of playing X a miserable slog, yet showed incredible aptitude on some other instrument. What da actual you-know-wut??

Yeah, piano is nice because you could learn to read 7 octaves in 2 different staves. Is the 7 octave black & white keyboard & grand staff required to notate it * really* an appropriate choice for your poor child who suffers from visual disturbances? Especially when you yourself state your kid’s depth perception is so bad that they can’t ride an escalator & that they’re still struggling to read in the 6th grade b/c printed words “wave” on the page? Doubly so when your kid just sat down, begged me for drum sticks & effortlessly rolled off ‘Hot For Teacher’ despite never having played a drum set before…

If granny wants to commune with nature, showing a steer in 4-H or teaching the poor kid how to forage for wild edibles would be a lot cheaper & less dangerous.

Eta: @S1969, why Russian? And I ask as someone who fell into the language quite by accident in college & has carved a niche for myself singing in it. It’s not a language for everyone, though. What if, idk, Japanese resonates better for them as individuals?

[SusanO]

Oh we had the Russian language thing too. Maybe this was during the Cold War? I can’t remember when but my parents decided that the future was going to be able to speak Russian and us kids needed to learn. So they bought a record which had a paper insert that explained the alphabet and we were supposed to listen to the record and learn. Heck - Russian has its own alphabet. Needless to say none of us learned Russian. It was a complete fail. I had a better chance of becoming the next Jean Pierre Rampal than learning Russian.

[TheDBYC]

@SusanO

Oh we had the Russian language thing too. Maybe this was during the Cold War? I

Говорим по-русский! The alphabet is a buggaboo. I remember being the only Russian speaker on a trip of Americans from my college town. On the Moscow metro five people had a death grip on my coat – I was the only one in the group who could read the station signs.

I’m surely in a tiny minority with my crunchy granola hippie beliefs that we come to this earth more than once. However, Russian language & culture are so familiar to me that it feels like a past life remembrance. The first time I brought a Russian art song in to a voice lesson in college my professor & my accompanist exchanged glances & then stared at me. “It’s…there’s this soul you have singing in Russian that you don’t have in English…” On my senior recital the rest of the voice faculty was excited enough about the Russian that none of them noticed we’d screwed up & forgotten to program any French repertoire

[Equkelly]

Yeppp I had Irish dance lessons as a kid. My mom would drive me an hour there and back once a week to go and I hated it. The barn was literally a 30 second walk from our house and still wouldn’t pay for riding lessons.

The dance lessons themselves didn’t traumatize me but being ignored and constantly feeling isolated did.

I think there’s a time and a place for things to have to drag your kid to. Tutoring, sure. Swimming lessons even? Yes, all kids need to learn how to swim. Physical therapy? Yep. Those are all things that IMO are ok to drag your kid to and it’s ok if the kid doesn’t love going.

But music lessons if the kid has no interest? Or horseback riding lessons if the kid has no interest? Or frickin Irish dance lessons if the kid has no interest? Sorry, no. You might as well just say to your kid “I really don’t give a sh*t about you or your identity or what you think would be fun so you’re just going to do what I say because you don’t really matter kid!”

Like I said, it’s not the riding lessons themselves it’s just indicative of a larger scale type of emotional neglect.

[S1969]

@TheDBYC

Eta: @S1969, why Russian? And I ask as someone who fell into the language quite by accident in college & has carved a niche for myself singing in it. It’s not a language for everyone, though. What if, idk, Japanese resonates better for them as individuals?

My kids were adopted from Russia and my older daughter was 5 at the time of her adoption so she was already fluent in Russian. Sadly, by the time we could organize Russian language lessons, she had long forgotten it, so she has two second languages, and no first language.

In one of their first schools they began teaching Spanish early - which is great - but I was really opposed to them learning Spanish as a foreign language instead of Russian. So…we pursued Russian. And there were many things about Russian lessons that were great for all of us (I still take lessons), but of course they wanted to quit more than once and I didn’t allow it.

As for piano - I think if kids have an interest in music, they should learn piano. My kids took piano from a teacher that also taught voice and guitar, and ultimately one asked for piano + guitar, the other asked for piano + voice, and when their teacher felt it was appropriate, she allowed them to drop piano (both of them are better at their 2nd interest than piano anyway). Of course she would have loved them to continue to play/practice, but at least they learned enough to read music and be able to play enough if they wanted to sound something out, write something, etc.

Most kids have to take something they don’t love. I don’t think that is inherently traumatic. But I’m also talking about relatively young kids. By the time a kid is a pre-teen/teenager, no way would I be dragging them around to stuff they don’t want to do (except school, of course). They can stay home too - that’s not traumatic either, although many parents seem to forget that a lot of kids don’t want/need an activity every day.

[TheDBYC]

@S1969

As for piano - I think if kids have an interest in music, they should learn piano.

Why?

[Bluey]

@TheDBYC

Why?

Because piano makes very easy to learn the technical basis of the language music is.

Once you learn thru learning piano how music basics work, then any music is easier to learn for any other instrument, much easier than learning similar in any other instrument.

A bit like learning latin will let you learn and understand any other latin based languages so much easier, or basic math will help with any other in life that requires counting.

The trouble is when people make learning piano about the piano itself, compare it to other instruments we may prefer as instruments and learning piano becomes an imposition when we like other instruments better.

Learning English riding gives you a good base to ride any horse.
Learning to ride by bombing around a course won’t teach you to ride properly, just seat of the pants hurl over jumps.
Even if jumping is why you want to learn to ride, learning a bit of basic dressage training is what lets you jump properly and safely.

[SuzieQNutter]

I always say that dressage is the trunk of the tree. The branches are jumping, etc that you can do after having the foundation down pat.

[S1969]

@TheDBYC

Why?

Yeah what Bluey said. It’s easy for small children as well…they do not have to learn a “technique” to produce a sound.

[TheDBYC]

@Bluey, which building blocks? I’m honestly not trying to be snide. I’m really trying to understand the building blocks argument because it is one I’ve heard perpetuated many times over the years in my 20+ years of teaching voice & piano. Often by parents who don’t play the piano themselves but have been told this by someone else who has a vested interest in selling lessons. If the argument is true, I’d be a happy camper because I’d have a monopoly on students

@S1969, there is technique involved though. And it’s a fairly difficult one for young children at that because it involves a degree of individual finger strength & mobility that is beyond the normal developmental readiness of small children. Pianos also are not scalable in size for children, either.

[Bluey]

@TheDBYC

@Bluey, which building blocks? I’m honestly not trying to be snide. I’m really trying to understand the building blocks argument because it is one I’ve heard perpetuated many times over the years in my 20+ years of teaching voice & piano. Often by parents who don’t play the piano themselves but have been told this by someone else who has a vested interest in selling lessons. If the argument is true, I’d be a happy camper because I’d have a monopoly on students

Well, you are the music teacher, so what does it matter what I think, not being one?

I too was that kid that at 6 was paddled for not wanting to practice piano and hiding in the staircase to the teacher’s apartment for a while, then lying about no one being there.
After many years of resigned to practice, badly, wanting to play flute, but not permitted to at home, I did in school, some of those piano years in the conservatory, my understanding was that with piano lessons music theory and piano practice of that theory, more than piano as an instrument, people learn about formal music as the language it is.

Nothing wrong with other ways to learn, playing other instruments, or to just play by ear.

Interesting to hear that no everyone agrees.

[S1969]

@TheDBYC

@S1969, there is technique involved though. And it’s a fairly difficult one for young children at that because it involves a degree of individual finger strength & mobility that is beyond the normal developmental readiness of small children. Pianos also are not scalable in size for children, either.

Yes, I know. I am a fairly accomplished classical pianist, and I started playing at age 4. Of course there is technique.

But, a piano offers a visual reinforcement to sound for half steps, whole steps, keys, sharps/flats, chords, etc. that may not be as easily understood with, say, a recorder. And, for anyone that has had their 2nd grader come home with a recorder - far more pleasing to listen to. And compared to a guitar or wind instrument, it may be easier for a very young child to begin learning on. They can make music immediately.

It’s not the only way to learn, or the only option, of course. Certainly, for a family who does not own a piano, maybe another instrument or method is better for a particular child. (Not the recorder. LOL.) And, of course, if a child expresses an interest in something else, I wouldn’t necessarily say a parent should insist on the piano instead - but if they could include piano in addition that would be great.

[candyappy]

@clanter

that is Hopefully …when I was a regional youth director for a breed association, in my area there were six children killed in riding accidents (none were related to the breed I worked with) … admittedly I do not believe any of those deaths occurred during riding lesion but there have been kids killed in lesion programs

I didn’t mean it in a literal way. I agree that risks to physical harm/ death are an ever present reality no matter what we do.

[McGurk]

Our rule for our kid was that once she signed up and committed to something, she had to finish it.

So she played rec league soccer for multiple seasons, and then one season, lost interest, because she was dramatically smaller than the other kids her age on her team. We said fine, you don’t have to play soccer any more after this season, but you do have to finish the season, otherwise it’s not fair to your coach and the other kids. She did, with minimal grumbling, because there was a point in the short term future when she knew she’d be done.

We revisited this scenario several times with other sports.

As for riding, she loved riding camp because of socializing with the other kids. (She was an only child of late in life parents.) I sensed that she didn’t have the true passion for horses and let her quit when she wanted to. Partially because riding camp was a pretty expensive way to have play dates. As an adult, if the weather conditions are perfect, she will hack out with me. I consider that a win.

A child that is forced to ride is not going to learn to love horses or learn to love riding.

[Russinka]

Poor kiddo, horse riding is dangerous enough for kids who want to do it, let alone kids who don’t.

[Lunabear1988]

Well grandma told me she is thinking of taking up lessons again herself. She is still thinking about it as a way to get the kid more interested but she admits that she is more enthusiastic than the kid.

Absolutely think Grandma should take lessons and should enjoy herself!!

[caffeinated]

@Equkelly

Children are their own people with their own interests and passions and deserve to be treated as such. They are not your accessories. They are not extensions of your ego. They are not your doll you can just dress up and make them do whatever you want. If grandma likes horses, grandma can go take lessons herself. This kid probably has other things that she would be excited about and enjoy. Maybe it’s music, maybe it’s art, maybe it’s dance, swimming, parkour, rock climbing, soccer, or whatever but it’s definitely not horses.

While I certainly agree in large part - another thing to consider is how do kids ultimately KNOW what they will be excited about or enjoy if they don’t try things? My son is kind of… not terribly self motivated to try new things, it’s just his personality. So I’ve put him in a few things - not so much because I want him to be, say, a soccer star, but because I want him to learn some skills, try being on a team, and learn how to commit to things for a little while. Ultimately? He found he LIKES soccer (at least, he likes drills/practice but hates games). He found he really likes archery. And he’s kind of getting into percussion/band enough to make it worthwhile. But he’d have never suggested or pushed me to get into those things.

It’s a fine line to walk as a parent between making them miserable and pushing them a little to expand their horizons and find interests. And the road can be so different with different kids (my daughter? She wants to try ALL THE THINGS. She likes sports, she likes dirtbikes, she loves ponies. LOL)

[Lunabear1988]

Well, a happy update. Last week grandma decided that she was taking lessons. Then today I heard her telling the girl that she thought about it and decided she didn’t have to ride anymore since she knew didn’t really enjoy it. So grandma will take two lessons a week now

The girl was very excited and jumping up and down, hugging her grandma. She then turned to my daughter and said, she was sorry to say but she was SO happy she didn’t have to take riding lessons anymore.

My daughter told her she should do whatever she’s interested in.

[trubandloki]

Now maybe your daughter can help her friend find a hobby that she enjoys!

[Lunabear1988]

Well a group of them are joining choir once a week after school! And occasionally we do these little art classes (her friend is really a talented artist already at 9.)

I could totally see her friend getting into theater later in life. One of the other friends is really enjoying sports.

My daughter is enjoying the riding and math. She loves math haha. I think she will enjoy choir, but not sure if it will be a passion. But that’s okay, I like that she’s exploring.