Any advice for nervous 12 year old DD?

[Monteadder]

My DD started regular lessons about a year ago and fell in love. I was chuffed, as I used to own ponies when younger. She joined the Pony Club at a large stables, and also did the volunteer training and volunteered a few times. Unfortunately, she’s a real introvert & definitely isn’t as confident as she needs to be be on the ground, but I was hoping the volunteering would help.

Unfortunately, a couple of times the instructors were a bit short with her, & the last time - several weeks ago now - an instructor she doesn’t know yelled at her for leading the pony in the wrong direction out of the stable. It was at the end of her shift & she was trembling & fighting back tears when I picked her up.

She hasn’t been to the stables since, and now says she’s not sure she wants to continue. She feels nauseous when she thinks about going back, and changes the subject. She admits she still loves & misses the ponies.

She knows she needs to toughen up, but she is who she is, and there’s no magic wand. The whole experience has also reminded me of my own Pony Club days. Feeling really anxious at camp, and the humiliation of being yelled at. I had hoped that things might have changed but, as I’ve explained to DD, horsey people just do have a tendency to be a bit bossy / shouty, and working with such large creatures some of it is necessary!

Any suggestions? I think she should give the volunteering a break as she’s just not confident enough on the ground, she’s tiny, and there might be an accident. More generally, the volunteering is very much ‘in at the deep end’ with unfamiliar ponies to tack up / untack, and pressure to do it quickly.

Should I try to persuade her to go back for lessons, or just accept that she’s not cut out for the horsey world? I’ve suggested a stable management lesson to ease her in, but she feels that will be worse. A share would be perfect, so she could get to know one pony and I could help her, but they’re like hen’s teeth round here.

i’ve thought about speaking to stables, but it’s such a busy place & I’m not sure what they’ll be able to do. Any suggestions? 😔

[carefullycourageous]

I do understand how DD feels, as I was that child, and was crippled with nervousness around others. I missed out on a lot of opportunities because of it, and looking back was definitely overly sensitive to things that, on balance, weren't so awful. The thread is about the riding, so I won't go on, but there's a lot of projection here, your DD may not feel the same way about her life as you do about yours. I definitely think letting her choose for herself would help, I loved riding but it isn't the be all and end all of life for everyone.

[Monteadder]

XelaM - Will PM you 🙂

[Monteadder]

carefullycourageous - yes, sometimes it is important to stand up to bad behaviour by adults. There's a balance to be struck though, because she has to live in a world where people are sometimes abrupt, rude and shouty, and sometimes she won't have a choice about spending time with these people.

I do understand how DD feels, as I was that child, and was crippled with nervousness around others. I missed out on a lot of opportunities because of it, and looking back was definitely overly sensitive to things that, on balance, weren't so awful.

Maybe the instructor did mean to make her feel stupid / make her cry. If so, they shouldn't be working with children. But knowing the context (this instructor is well-liked, I think), it's perhaps more likely they made an 'in the moment' mistake. We'll never know which is true, but it's important for DD to consider all perspectives.

I agree on control over the hobby - we have already agreed on no more volunteering for now, but she's coming round to going back for a lesson, and we'll take it from there. I think I'll also have a word with one of the senior staff members and ask if DD would be able to shadow one of the other experienced volunteers for a couple of days if she does decide to return to volunteering.

[carefullycourageous]

She knows she needs to toughen up I disagree with this. If my daughter was shouted at by an instructor I would complain and stand up for my daughter, not think she should toughen up! Your daughter was shouted at for no reason.

I used to ride and was not treated this way, thankfully. Young people in all sorts of sports are exploited/bullied by people who know they can get away with it because the kids want to do the activity - dancing, gymnastics, horse riding, swimming, football etc.

Agree it would be good to reiterate to DD again that the instructor probably reacted in the moment & meant no harm. I aso disagree with this. I would tell my DD that instructor was wrong, but we have no idea why they behave this way. You shouldn't advocate for the other party.

Is it really such a shame of your DD no longer wants to go? Personally I would give your DD more control over this hobby and let her decide how she wants to play it. Maybe a different activity would be more enjoyable, or maybe she will want to go again if it is more her own decision.

[XelaM]

Horsey people are tough! Not being horsey myself, I was always shocked by how much I was paying for someone to constantly shout at my kid 🙈 Definitely look at other yards and stop the volunteering for now. My daughter definitely toughened up over the years and is quite a tough horsey girl herself now. She actually really likes the mean/shouty instructors now and complains that the ones who are too nice are useless 😬 But she doesn't like volunteering either.

Where about are you? If you're anywhere near North London, I can recommend a yard that offers many shares/loans but they don't have Pony Club. Our own lovely 14.2 pony might be up for a loan/share by the end of the year as (money permitting 😱) the instructor is pushing us to buy a SJ competition pony and we don't want to sell the one we have.

[Monteadder]

maxelly - thanks for this 😊. Your girth story made me grimace. I can so imagine how upset I’d be by this! You’d think we’d grow out of such strong negative reactions to something fairly minor like this, but that hot shame feeling is pretty hardwired 😁.

Agree it would be good to reiterate to DD again that the instructor probably reacted in the moment & meant no harm. I want her to continue as I think if she sticks with it her confidence will improve (and I get to hang out with ponies for a bit while dropping & collecting her 🥰). I also think it’s a genuinely good thing to encourage a more sensitive and quietly confident generation of horsey people / instructors, but this won’t happen if people like her flee when she’s just starting out. She gets her head down, works incredibly hard, and wants to please.

She does get discounted riding lessons for volunteering which was a massive incentive for us too, as it’s no longer possible for us to fund such regular lessons.

Thanks to everyone. Feeling a bit more optimistic, & have some new ideas 🙂

[maxelly]

Ah bless her, we've all been there, horsey people can be so loud/insensitive and I don't think today's teens are remotely prepared for it, I'm a grown woman and supposedly quite confident and yet got yelled at by our notorious local PC battleaxe a few weeks ago for doing up a girth 'wrong', a task I must have done thousands of times in my life uneventfully, and somewhat shamefully have to admit to getting a bit watery eyed/shaky even though I know full well what she's like, so God knows if that had been a teenage girl she'd probably have to be scraped off the floor .

I know it's flippant to say it but the vast majority of times no hurt is meant when this happens, I doubt the instructor deliberately meant to humiliate her over such a minor issue or put her off, it was likely just a misjudgement of tone/volume and she wasn't to know your DD was already feeling a bit wobbly, weirdly with some of these strident types it's actually a mark of respect/affection for their teen helpers to bawl them out every so often, they care enough to want them to learn, treat them as their own kind of thing. It's when they send you to Coventry and won't speak to you at all you worry. Silly and immature of course but that's (some) horsey folk for you, there's often a reason they work with animals rather than people, put it that way!

If you can encourage your DD to put it behind her that would be brilliant for her self esteem and resilience, if she's still feeling embarrassed and that's what's making her worried about going back but can you reassure her that the instructor probably shouts at 10 people a day and no-one but her will even have noticed? Otherwise the suggestion of trying a few lessons somewhere else or just doing lessons and PC at current place, no volunteering for a while. To be fair it sounds as though she works hard and if she isn't being treated nicely then why should she carry on, do they get anything in compensation, I know payment is usually difficult logistically but most places manage to offer helpers free or discounted riding or similar in exchange for their work?

[Monteadder]

Lastqueenofscotland2 - I’m not entirely sure why leading the pony in the wrong direction was such an issue, but DD was trying her best /made a genuine mistake. She realised immediately after the yelling that she should have turned the other way out of the stable to take the pony to the ménage (there are 2 routes, one more direct) & did so. There was no further interaction with the instructor afterwards, and she must have know DD was new to volunteering. To be honest, I’ve never heard this instructor shout before, but it was in a non public area, so she maybe has a different non-public persona (or maybe she just a bad day!)

IcklePickle8 - have considered a smaller yard, but this is the only one in the area that offers Pony Club, so she’d have to give that up. Maybe worth it though, particularly if she’s going to opt out anyway. I also made my mistakes around horses/learned from them in relative privacy, and definitely wouldn’t have been brave enough to volunteer on a yard like this, so I guess DDs already doing better than me 🙂

[IcklePickle8]

I’d try somewhere else. Don’t let people be the barrier to enjoying horses. I was lucky enough to have my own at home from a young age and probably made mistakes (and learnt from them) without being shouted at. Horsey people (and I include me in that) generally just want the best for the horses so can sometimes be a little excessive in the demand they place on others. My DD goes to a small PC centre which is lovely. Or just go for lessons and/or look to volunteer to help elsewhere

[Lastqueenofscotland2]

Hmm generally I am not a fan of the super shouty instructor as they tend to come with the territory of “hit them with a stick until they do it” when the pony is on its tenth hour of work that week, fed up and slightly unlevel behind.

However I guess a bit of context is needed, was it shouting to correct something that could be dangerous from across the yard “Mille stop leading the pony like that if he spooks were scraping you off the yard with a spatula” or was it shouting at her after the event, rather than explaining what she did wrong? Horses can be dangerous as im sure you’re aware ans the instructors may not want to be super “nice” in these situations as they need to change the potentially dangerous mistake very quickly?