Oh please yerself. I never made any comment about how a child will wind up, so chill. I’m not the only one who pointed out that the poster (who was misunderstood) was seemingly being unreasonable. Rein in your judgement.
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For discussion’s sake - I don’t have a child. So it would be disingenuous of me to answer your questions about how I would be leaving my kid with people, at school or driver’s Ed, etc.
I suppose I’d have to compare it to the comfort level I have trusting my horse with a total stranger training him if the trainer had a blanket policy no one could watch his training sessions. I would not be comfortable with that, no.
Not to derail OP’s question which is valid. But just to offer a different perspective about how I find that blanket rule a red flag, particularly in the wake of equestrians learning so much about some revered icons in the sport being child predators.
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Your post said “As for people who won’t leave a kid in a lesson, hoo boy. Driver’s Ed is gonna be fun. How do you handle school? Sleepovers? Are they allowed to go anywhere?” That is a lot of judgement you are making about a child’s future just because a parent prefers to watch the lesson. And really those are the parents you want. the ones who drop the kid off and make them your problem until they show back up are a much bigger issue most of the time.
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Rule sheet, then polite reminder, then not so polite reminder.
I rode at a barn where the trainer stopped being polite to over-interfering parents. She gave them the option of coming into the center of the ring to teach the lesson themselves or putting duct tape over their mouths. It usually did the trick. (One dad called his 11 or 12 year old daughter over during a Saturday morning lesson and handed her a bottle of water while she was on the horse. I thought the trainer was going to explode. LOL. Not to mention this was a 45 minute walk/trot/beginner canter lesson in November. No one was sweating.)
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I think the rule sheet is a good idea. Basic. Applied to all / anyone watching, as far as interactions during your lessons. Of COURSE they should be able to watch. And to be honest? You’ve chosen a wonderful giving ‘job’ in working with special needs. But you also must handle that interaction with parents with a different approach and understanding. They have a very hard road and are reaching out of a comfort zone to give this opportunity to their child and thats a huge nod of respect to you. These aren’t ‘dropped off’ barn rats who are left all day to hang out, and run amuck I’m assuming. These parents will be more present I would assume.
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Wrong. I was judging a certain subset of parent. Absolutely no comment about how a kid will wind up. Yet again.
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@Freebird! , I would explain to the parents that therapeutic riding provides several benefits to the rider. In addition to the obvious physical therapy benefits, it also gives the rider an opportunity to exercise some independence and to address cognitive, behavioral and emotional needs. To guide the rider through the emotional, behavioral and cognitive benefits of therapeutic riding, it’s essential that the child focus on the instructors. One of the goals is to teach the rider to focus, and that can only be effective when there is one synchronized team providing the instruction.
Hope this helps!
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If this is something that has been going on for a while, I would try to speak to parents privately for about 5 minutes. Then I would explain something like, “I really enjoy working with the children I am working with. I love my job and am always trying to improve! Recently I’ve realized that sometimes I am distracted by parents giving instructions from the sidelines, and I think the kids can be too! I know that there are times when this might be hard because of course you know your child best, but please understand that in order to give the lesson safely and effectively I need to have my full attention on your child and the horse, and the child needs to have his or her attention on the horse and I. If you forget, I’ll remind you - but please do your best to help me with this.”
In the future, provide new parents with a rule sheet explaining this. Since these are students you’ve had for a while I think it’s best to have an upfront, face to face discussion about distraction and riding and how your teaching is evolving.
If a particular parent had a real issue with this, then you may need to have a talk about watching from the lounge or at a distance, but hopefully most will understand. I do agree that asking them not to watch might look very suspicious and personally I would tell someone I couldn’t give their child lessons before I would do that. I would feel a lot more comfortable working with kids with a parent present.
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Since we’re clearing up misunderstandings, I originally stated
I worked at a barn were the rules stated parents were only allowed to watch the last 10 minutes of a lesson. The last ten minutes were usually cooling out and games.
and then I clarified further by saying
It was a small local program, where the parents and the instructors all knew each other and had for years. Parents could sit in their car and watch the lesson, but they couldn’t be seated beside the ring or in shouting distance of the kids. Worked pretty well. I don’t think anyone gave a thought to predators at that time and in that place.
and
My solution with my own small program was to have the parents watch from the barn if they wished. I had a small paddock between the barn and ring, it enforced a non-coaching distance. Even then, if I saw they kid looking up at the barn while riding, I asked the parent to back out of view. A lot of the solution lies in geography - I made it uncomfortable or difficult for parents to be close to the ring for long periods of time.
This somehow transmorgified into a program where
an instructor would have a blanket policy where parents are not allowed to watch lessons/observe the professional with their student.
That is a situation which no one in this thread has described or advocated for.
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Give me some credit - none of that was clarified in your original post, which is what I originally replied to… And then it went totally off the rails, with some assumptions made about my parenting style (lol).
Your original post said:
Which sounds like a blanket policy to me, and was exactly what I referenced in my reply.
You coming in a few replies later to backpedal + clarify doesn’t change what you posted in your OP, nor does it change my subsequent comment since again, I was only replying to the information you gave me in your original post. :winkgrin:
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Is there a viewing area or a place where parents usually stand to view? I know it’s passive aggressive, but I’d probably put up a sign about “Riders need QUIET from outside the arena so they can hear the Instructor” or “The Instructor should be the only person talking to the riders during the lesson.” Or if the parents all like to sit at a picnic table or something, I might move the picnic table out of ear shot. OR, you could strategically place sprinklers where parents like to stand and suggest that parents watch from their cars?
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“Parents talking during lessons will be given tack to clean”
StG
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As a relative to a boy on the spectrum, I know his parents have really had to take a more active role in his life. They had to advocate and challenge schools, teachers, therapists, doctors, and outside recreation sources to get their kid in the situation that is best for him. In short, they are accustomed to more ‘hand-holding’ and taking an active role in their child’s life because they HAVE to.
This can be pretty hard to turn off. Its not the usual ‘helicopter’ parenting or ‘stage mom’ stuff you can see. Its born out of their child genuinely needing them to to speak up on their behalf because that child might lack communication abilities. In short, these parents are used to taking on the role of coach/teacher more than most parents.
Just approach the situation with kindness, and explain that in YOUR barn, YOUR policy is that the child must 100% focus on you (the instructor) for the sake of safety as a distracted child on a horse is a recipe for someone getting hurt. If you feel comfortable, you can even ask if the child does any other sports or physical activities and how those coaches handle teaching. In my nephew’s case, his swim coach encourages parental help and involvement, so the parents you are dealing with may have a similar situation and they assume that their help/coaching is welcomed. Just point out that the horses add an element of unpredictability and the rules are there for safety. Explain that the kids are usually more successful when they can focus on the horse, and if they parents have any questions on what their child is doing or what they can work on before next lesson, they can address you 1:1 after the session.
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That is very well-phrased, BatCoach. The element of the horse does change things for involved parents. I described an occasion above where a parent handed the child a water bottle over the rail during a lesson - and that was the perspective that the trainer took with the dad. It might seem innocent enough, but not all horses would expect, or stand still if someone reached out from the rail and handed something to a rider. Even if the horse wasn’t acting up, the student’s attention is not on riding or the trainer. 99% of of the time - no big deal. But why take that 1% chance - we’re talking about beginner rider, non-horsey parent, and a lesson horse that you only see once a week. A couple of steps and a weight change from the rider - and it might cause a spook or a fall.
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I’m guessing you don’t have kids.
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You can try saying it this way:
- All students who are learning new skills need plenty of processing time to hear/understand your instruction and put it into action. (A parent of a special needs student should especially understand this, but it's true of all humans.)
- They need time to think about their position, how the horse is moving under them, plan out how to apply the aid you've requested of them, and then to feel how the horse responds to the aid they've just applied.
- Learning how to ride depends on paying close attention to and responding in real time to very subtle and subjective issues. It's not a strictly mechanical activity where, if you hold a certain position exactly right, all will be fine. And sometimes, it's the instructors' prerogative to ignore certain position faults because they're not essential to the real lesson at hand. In any case, it's not at all helpful to coach riding position without an understanding of all the other inputs that go into riding position and the instructor's lesson plan for the day.
- Riding horses, at its best, is a conversation between horse and rider. There's no room in that conversation for voices from the rail. The instructor is there to guide that conversation and teach the rider how to have that conversation on his/her own. When parents interject by repeating, or contradicting the instructor, what they're doing is preventing the rider from having the quiet conversation with their horse that they need to learn how to have.
- None of the above will be easily visible from the rail where the parents stand. They have no way to see what you and the student see/feel, and you need to ask for their trust to let you run your lesson as you see fit.
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I’m guessing you didn’t read all the posts and saw that this was addressed - or just decided to pick me instead of the other posters who commented.
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I agree with @BatCoach - that has been my experience as well.
having written rules might work well, but it also might work to have them somehow involved in the lesson if there is a safe way to do it. Could even be something goofy, like “let’s see who can go weave the pylons faster: kiddo on horseback or mom on foot”. I base this on my (very limited) experience teaching autistic kids…their parents are used to being involved, and might enjoy being able to have some fun with the kids. You could even offer a “trial” ride for the parents, so they get a better understanding of what the kids are doing…the kids might like seeing their parents struggle to perform a skill the kids themselves can do.
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Ahhh. Well you guessed wrong.
Yep-Read them all, I was speaking to you, hence why I quoted you. I was specifically speaking to your last paragraph.
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Well I was talking specifically to the person who posted.
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