11/04/2024
How to be a great lesson parent!
1.) WATCH YOUR KID RIDE! I can’t believe how many dads (sorry, but in my experience it’s always the dads) sit in the car and don’t watch EVER. Your kid absolutely wants to know that you are watching. Please make your child feel important and come sit ring side.
2.) Do NOT coach! Are you an accomplished equestrian? No? Shush. Yes? Then you give the lesson.
3.) Take video. It’s helpful. A few barns have rules against video but most love when you not only video, but send us instructors good clips!
4.) If you see something, say something TO THE INSTRUCTOR. Is your kid’s outside foot the whole way deep into the stirrup and the instructor is on the inside of their circle and can’t see it? It’s okay to tattle. 🤣 But if you talk to your child directly it’s distracting. (if nothing else, it’s hard to take instructions from two people at the same time.) occasionally a parent will point something out to me, and I’ll say, “Yep, good eye. But I’m not worried about that right now.”  sometimes we have to let something slide while we work on something else. But we’re also not perfect and we do miss things occasionally.
5.) Understand that giving the same instruction over and over is normal. It happens with adults too.  If I tell them to step into their right stirrup a little more, I’m usually happy if they maintain it for 30 seconds on their own… seriously. Unless the entire exercise is about fixing one body part, it’s very common for riders to make a fix, just for it to slide back out of place almost immediately.
I bring this up because I see parents sometimes get embarrassed or frustrated when I have to tell their kids to put their hands down on repeat. The parent looks ready to jump up and down screaming, “Just Keep your Freaking Hands Down Already!!!!!” I promise you it’s not that easy!
6.) Politely discourage your child from talking to you. If twice during a lesson, your child looks over and asks you to video or if they ask you to hand them a water bottle during a break, that stuff is totally fine. But if your child’s interaction with you is constant or if they clearly have more attention on you than the instructor, just say, “Pease pay attention to Miss Danee and not me.”
7.) If your child is anxiously attached to you, use this opportunity to wean them off of you slowly, and not traumatically. Don’t just dump them off at the lesson and hop in your car and leave, but maybe tell them you are going to walk outside and make a phone call while they tack up/ warm up, but that you’ll be back in time to watch the majority of the lesson. Or if the lesson is in an outdoor arena, just pull your chair a little further away instead of sitting right next to the arena. 
Basically it all comes down to middle ground- show interest in your kid’s progress, but also encourage independence.
The barn is a great place to develop secure attachment styles, independence, and a love for learning!
Allow us riding instructors to work our magic, but also be around to witness it, and praise your child for their progress.
Wanna make it even better? On the drive home ask your kid what their favorite part was, or what they thought they did well, and which parts were hard or easy. Don’t grill them about it, but show interest and get them thinking about their progress.

