As most of you know, we are in the process of moving. And unfortunately that leaves me with a number of children without a coach. Some of the parents of my previous students asked me what I thought was important in a riding coach for children and I had never really thought about it but upon thinking, these are what we came up with.
One. Safe broke to death lesson horses. They don’t all need to be Fuzz (ie doesn’t move unless the coach is there). However, they do need to have been exposed to all the things that could happen in a lesson. They should be forgiving but at the same time make the kids work for it. Not all ponies work for all kids, so more than one would be ideal as the child progresses. I would have to add proper equipment that fits children could be in here too.
In my experience, this is a tough one to find out ahead of time other than watching lessons. A simple way may simply to ask the coach how long they have they had “Fuzz” in their lesson program or what are some things you look for in a safe lesson horse.
Two. Patience, Patience, Patience. If the coach is frustrated at the kids for forgetting how to roll up the stirrups for the 100th time then that doesn’t help the kids learn any faster it just makes them uncomfortable as they are learning.
How to find out if the coach has patience is a bit harder as its not a straight up question. This is more something you might observe and watching the coach teach a children’s lesson may be a good way.
Three. Experience. Unfortunately as a coach you cannot learn, what words work better for getting a child to keep his/her heels down, the best way to explain the two point to a 6 year or the many different ways we can teach flying changes. Some things just have to be learnt through teaching experience. And that is just teaching lesson upon lesson for days, weeks and months.
Asking for references would be an easy to answer this question about your potential children’s riding coach however, this is probably easily found on a Facebook page in this fay and age.
Four. How to be fun. Ultimately in order to keep kids interested in something, it has to be fun and riding can be fun in many ways. And riding can be fun in many ways, using games as a coaching technique, doing races in group lessons or allowing the kids to kick around the barn and play. Whichever way it is – your child has to be having fun some of the time.
Simply ask the coach, what are some of the things you do in your lessons to keep the lessons interesting?
Five. Ability to communicate effectively. Coaches when working with children need to be able to communicate not only to the children who are riding in a way they can understand but also to the parents in a way they can understand about what is going on. As a parent – you need to feel confident that the coach has a plan, can articulate what is happening, and can do so with ease.
One way to ask this of a potential could would be what does he/she usually see in children the same age as yours. Ie. what struggles are 8 year old girls usually having with their riding?