I'm the dreaded horse mom

I actually love lunge lessons for myself too. They work SO well.

All this has made me remember the woman who came out to the barn I was boarding at and bought a made dressage horse for her daughter. Mom had apparently wanted to ride as a child but had not been allowed to. She buys the horse from the barn trainer and decides daughter needs a lesson. Trainer obliges but the entire time she was trying to give the lesson the mother kept correcting her. Literally everything the trainer said to do, the mother said not to and vice versa. Daughter took a couple more lessons but as the mother kept up the correcting, the trainer ultimately fired them as clients. Mom blew thru several more trainers in the area and then disappeared - was last heard of hauling horse and child several counties north of us ISO “better” trainers.

Yow.

@shiloh geez! I hope I’m not that bad!! Lol! I don’t correct or argue with the trainer. It’s more like I have hard time watching her go around multiple laps with heels up or her hands too high (because she’s struggling with balance.) But still I do understand that it must be annoying. The trainer insists that it doesn’t bother her-that I’m helpful. But I’m sure it’s a little annoying and I know it annoys my daughter lol

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If what you see is making you crazy, it probably is better to find instruction elsewhere than to continue interrupting the current instructor. If the instructor isn’t articulating her reasons for doing things the way she does them, it may be that her skills really aren’t up to the best standard.

And of course it is confusing for your daughter when mom interferes. Children can have a hard time focusing on just one instructional voice. Bringing in another voice, and especially a parent, is a risk of overwhelming a child with more input than they can process. And they may be unsure of how to handle the dynamic between the adults - they can sense undercurrents even when everyone is polite. Of course you don’t want to create unnecessary issues between you and your daughter.

You are doing a wonderful thing to support your daughter in her interest in horses. Even for a parent involved in horses, it’s a big deal to get a child to lessons and juggle all the other responsibilities of life. A lot of kids would love to have a parent as dedicated to helping them fulfill their passions as you are! :slight_smile:

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Yeah she’s very young and hasn’t taught for long. My daughter is at a point where she has more goals and determination than when she was younger so I do think a different program will be needed at some point.

She took lessons when she was younger and I didn’t feel I needed to side coach so I think it’s a bit of a sign.

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Yes it probably is a sign. I empathize with you - it’s hard to find the right balance of instruction, facilities, good lesson horses, convenience, etc. And even harder for kids, in my opinion. My daughter’s instructor was also young and had a hard time drawing a line between the “fun friend” trainer to the “because I said so” kind of trainer. Sometimes she was fun, and sometimes she was annoyed and sharp with the kids because they weren’t taking her seriously. It was difficult for the kids, and difficult to watch.

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You definitely need a different trainer.

This is an interesting thread. I’m the only horsey person in my family. My mom thinks they’re pretty but wants no part of getting up close and personal. She was more than happy to just drop me off at the barn for lessons. So it’s interesting to hear things from an involved horse mom POV. As a kid I always envied the kids who had ponies of their own and whose moms loved horses- I thought how lucky they were. Now as an adult, this thread helps me see some of the upsides to having had a non-horse mom.

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Ha ha yep! My mom would sometimes watch, but she was terrified of horses. Kind of comical. But yes my daughter has a much different experience. I think there is pros and cons. She’s gotten more exposure than some but yes it’s not all great :stuck_out_tongue:

100 years ago, when my daughter took lessons I would sit and watch but rarely said anything. Her instructor said it was so funny to watch me because my body would unconsciously be doing everything my daughter should have been doing at the time. I was riding throughout her lesson from the bench in the arena. If something went wrong, the instructor said I looked like a cartoon character whose heart leaps out of their chest and then back in.

I remember 2 conversations with DD after 2 different lessons. In one lesson the pony she was on would gallop the long side instead of maintaining a canter. I asked if that ever worried her. Her reply, “No because he always slows down as we go by the barn.” Why didn’t I see that?

Another time she was on a half trained pony that ran away from leg. The trainer had DD drop her stirrups, which made her use her leg and pony started going faster and faster around the ring. Soon DD was only half in tack but when the pony slowed down in the corner, DD hauled herself back into the saddle, kicked the pony into the middle of the ring and sat on the reins to stop it. She then picked up her stirrups and went back to riding. On the ride home I asked, “What were you going to do if the pony wouldn’t stop?” Her answer? “I would have just run her into the wall, she would have stopped then.” DD was 10 years old at the time and had never been told to do this. She was always “Miss Practical”.

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