Wwyd … helper, treats and social media

[KellyanneConway]

A teen girl and her mum that I didn’t know at all previously started doing some jobs at my previous sole use yard in return for low key riding three times a week. There were a few incidents with boundaries and sticking to my rules but the girl seemed to love my horse so I was probably a bit too soft. I’ve moved yards now and have livery. They have visited a few times and I said she could have the odd field ride when the weather is better. I don’t go on social media much but tonight I have found out that she has her own pound shop Harlow White thing going on on Tick Tock and YouTube staring my horse. I’ve seen the videos, there are loads and of other peoples horses from my new yard that haven’t been asked permission. There are videos of my horse being given sweets and cakes, being made to rear and being ridden on a super tight rein. I’m a bit shocked, my own kids are not and have never been prolific on social media, is this normal for horsey teens? Even if the temptation is there to get likes, surely if you love a horse you would put their health first? Am I having the piss taken out of me or am I overreacting?

I think you're under-reacting about all of it, and the arrangement would be ending immediately.

She is literal doing stuff that could kill your horse. They’d be getting a detailed message tonight explaining how bad their behaviour has been and ending any access to the horse now.

Thank you. There’s been a lot of emotional outpourings in the past when I’ve told them to do/ not do certain things from the mum on the past about how much she loves him and would never do anything to hurt him that I’ve let myself be manipulated by. But my lovely horse comes first

Right… well if you have allowed them to do things which are harmful to your horse because the mum got emotional and spouted the nonsense about loving the horse then you maybe shouldn’t have a horse.

You need to sort this out and grow a backbone. Sorry but it is sounding like you’ve caught them giving the horse stuff it shouldn’t have before… and just let it go because they were sad at being told off.

You need to cut their access completely.

No you lose your shit big time in whatever style you prefer and make it absolutely clear they are not to come visiting any more. You make yard owner and anyone else relevant fully aware of what this kids been doing and make it crystal clear they are to kick her out if they find her there, she does not have permission to be there and is a danger to the horses. Mother too, she's as bad.
I'm thinking you may need to move yards again to somewhere they won't find you.
Unfortunately the horse world has quite a few of these nutters.

I have had this twice with teens. The first one surprised me. She didn’t think I’d see the things she was posting on social media, as we weren’t friends there, but mutual friends gave me a heads up. Her posts were on Facebook. She was straight out the door. The second teen was aware of the first teen’s inappropriate posts on Facebook. So she put hers on instagram instead where she thought I wouldn’t see. She was out the door soon after. I have lovely adult helpers now, who don’t take the piss.

Teen helpers imo just can’t help themselves.

Honestly I think teen sharers are often so desperate to be “cool” that this stuff happens.
Personally I’d be on the phone to the parents saying she wasn’t welcome to come to the yard anymore and make it explicitly clear why

I don’t have a horse, but “There are videos of my horse being given sweets and cakes, being made to rear and being ridden on a super tight rein.” This does not sound good at all, if it were my pet I’d be upset and angry and ending this arrangement immediately. Advocate for your poor horse.

I thought you weren’t allowed to feed horses crap as it can kill them? I’ve seen many threads on here about it. And that’s been apples or what have you, never mind cakes!

Strong message to both teen and mum explaining that she endangered your horse and is no longer welcome to spend time with your horse and that you will be reporting this to both current and previous yard

Then report to both, she is a danger to horses !

Surely this can't be true??

Yes it is true unfortunately @CurlewKate . I’m mortified and embarrassed that I took my eye off the ball to this extent. I’ve been dealing with some personal stuff and the “care sandwich”- moving yards recently was part of getting back on track but that’s no excuse. I’ve told the mum my thoughts on the matter, they’re to stay away and I’ve blocked them. Thanks for the harsh but fair replies. I’m also going to cut my working hours to spend more time at the yard making it up to my lovely pony.

Totally agree. Her feet would not touch the ground as my foot hit her arse.
I would also insist all social media was removed and threaten legal action if my horse had been harmed or behaviour changed in any way.
This sort of nonsense is exactly why I never had anyone near my horses if I wasn’t present.

What would I do? I'd go ballistic and stop access to my horse.

I've got yard rat kids and they're on SM but it's only videos of them riding.

Likewise. All mine posts is endless videos of her grooming, jumping and doing dressage tests. Which I then dutifully have to watch, critique and like 😂

good to see you've given them the boot, totally unacceptable behaviour

This. My teen and her friends post endless videos of themselves riding but would never ever do anything to harm their horses. This is not normal horsey teen behaviour! This is some nutter with an equally nuts parent. Make sure your yard owner is aware that she's not allowed on the yard.

She's making your horse rear? Under saddle?

That's insanely dangerous for your horse, you, and also her as well. I would absolutely be having words with the mum, explaining how unacceptable this is, and never letting her near your horse again.

Teens can be a bit gung ho, but no this is not normal, and definitely not with someone else's horse.

I would speak to your YO, explain what has happened, apologise, and explain you have asked them to no longer ride/handle your horse. And I would ask your YO what they want to do, but I would expect an involved YO to ban them from the yard.

This is actually so extreme, I would potentially put a post on FB or similar, warning others about them. Maybe I am overreacting, but if I found out someone had been encouraging my horse to rear, I would absolutely lose it. It's so, so dangerous.

This is really outing but I don’t care now I want the mum to see this and realise how batshit she’s been. There was also the purchase of Le Meiux products, putting them on my horse and tagging them in posts. So obviously hoping to make some £ or freebies from my horse too which was possibly the motivation for the OTT videos. YO is fuming about the mum filming on her yard without permission among other things so they’re definitely gone. The more I type the more I realise what an idiot I’ve been and feel so embarrassed that I let it happen. Thanks for the kick up the arse people who have posted - horses can bring the best out in people but also, as I’ve found out , the worst. My lad is fine health wise but there have been some behaviour changes which I can now see the cause of and work on reversing.

I have a ‘second rider’ for each of my horses. I work away from home, DCs are at school, but I need 2 of them fit for competition. I need another one exercising regularly for rehab purposes. Each rider and I get together regularly to discuss the horse’s current program, what I want to achieve with the horse, and what the rider wants to do. That way we are all happy, and I keep a close eye on what my horses are up to. You can’t just invite someone in, say ‘here you go, do what you want’ and expect them to have the exact same approach as you. The 2 teens who ride the ponies are very big into their Lemieux matchy matchy and are always bringing their latest birthday presents up. I have no problem with this, as long as they understand 2 things - 1. I don’t put Lemieux sheepskin on my horses’ backs (long story but they are poor quality, caused a rub, and Lemieux didn’t want to know.) 2. If they leave their fancy Lemieux stuff attached to the saddle, don’t expect my kids to remove it when they ride. (My DS didn’t notice a fancy numnah once and it accidentally got left behind at a fun ride.)

Wrt the rearing and other undesirable behaviour, you need to be on that and nip it in the bud. Sometimes undesirable behaviour is inadvertent and there is no malice intended, but the consequences are not great. One of my people taught the small pony to kiss them for treats which seems cute, but now I have a 350kg animal who headbutts people in the face for reward, so we had a talk about how that wasn’t great and to stop doing it.

Communication is important here. You also need to set out your levels of expectation. If you rider doesn’t abide by your levels of expectation, even after repeated asking, you need to let that rider go. I had one once who spent 3 months not riding the horse because she reckoned the horse was giving her the vibe he didn’t want to be ridden. She’d tack him up, go in the school, and then just stand there patting him until he presented himself at the mounting block. Horse wasn’t daft, he wasn’t going to volunteer! But no amount of telling the rider that I expected her to be able to actually get on the horse (because we were working on fitness) was getting through. So in the end we parted ways.

It's funny that you think buying LeMieux products and tagging them into videos to get freebies is outing, literally thousands of teen wannabe influencers must be doing that up and down the land, I don't think anyone's going to guess your particular one .

Have to say contrary to the consensus on the thread I've had teen helpers/sharers in the past and they've been fabulous so I wouldn't want someone reading the thread to be put off having one, but like PP says you do have to be really on it with your communication and boundaries, much more so than with an adult. You really can't assume they know things which seem obvious to you (like needing permission from YO and other horse owners to film TikToks, social media and cameras are such a ubiquitous part of this generation's lives, its totally normal to them, I'm not sure many 14-15yos I know would think to ask first).

Not saying you are wrong to have those boundaries at all BTW just that I've learnt through long experience you do need to tell teenagers what's what - they're still growing up and learning after all and they may do totally random things without even thinking. I guess it is good overall that we're so much more sensitive and gentle with children these days but I do think there's a place for a good old-fashioned bollocking, it's a shame really that we've come to feel as though we can't ever even mildly criticize a young person for fear of being chastised as a bully or abuser. I have some very cringe memories of horsey things I thought it was fine to do when I was a teenager yonks ago but thankfully was set straight on in no uncertain terms as was the norm at the time - one was for some reason I decided it was better to change out of my school uniform into yard clothes in the hay barn rather than the toilet (which TBF was a pretty grim affair), then inevitably got walked in on in my underwear by one of the (male) grooms who was mortified, I quite rightly got a right good blasting for that by the YO. Another one was I routinely 'borrowed' pieces of kit (sticks, saddle cloths etc) from others without asking, it wasn't stealing in my mind but again got told off pretty roundly when caught at it . The important thing though was (a) I never did it again once told and (b) there is no way my parents would have done anything other than 100% back-up the YO or owner in their setting me straight pretty robustly. I think the Mum is way more to blame than the daughter in this whole sorry situation. Maybe she isn't horsey/doesn't know why you were saying what you did, but giving you the sad eyes/emotional blackmail for completely reasonable requests rather than teaching her daughter that she needs to do as she's told by someone who's trusting her/doing her a big favour is completely wrong IMO!

@maxelly you're right I haven’t got a clue about social media other than re posting missing dogs and sharing holiday pics! And I don’t blame the girl at all I blame myself and the (claims to be horsey) mum for not backing me or reinforcing my boundaries and lacking respect for my boundaries in general. It’s been a steep and embarrassing learning curve, I’m a lot older than the mum and she obviously doesn’t have the same social norms and assumptions as me. There’s a teen helper at my current yard who is great and helps the YO, she is strictly supervised and when the YO doesn’t have time she is told to just groom and go home. I’ve been stupid as well as short on time.

Horsey teens are usually great and for the most part trustworthy, but the worst teen sharer I ever had was one with a supposedly horsey parent 🫣I think you have been very unlucky OP because most teens wouldn't do anything harmful to a horse (especially not their own!) just for social media posts, but clearly these people should be banned from the yard. But don't be put off all horsey teens.