Mind Games - Being a supportive parent and what it means with Tanja Mitton

This article is from the October 2020 Horse Deals magazine.

It is hard being a parent anyway without throwing horses, competitions, hormonal teenagers and riding club politics into the mix.

I don’t want to sound negative here, but I want you to know that whatever you do some things will be wrong.

OK, maybe I need to explain what I mean with that. I do a lot of mindset coaching with adults, teenagers and kids. What I find is that there is no best way to support and no right way of doing it.

I speak to lots of kids, teenagers and parents who struggle financially and can’t afford the $10,000+ horse for their kids to be competitive. The kids feel that they are not good enough and don’t have a chance against the other riders with the better trained, better bred and more expensive horses and the parents feel that they are letting their kids down.

Then I speak with the kids and teenagers who come from wealthy families where the parents are fortunate enough to put a lot of money into their kids’ sport and I find that the kids put enormous pressure on themselves because of the backing they are getting. (Even though there is no pressure from the parents.)

It seems as parents we are doomed if we do and doomed if we don’t.

So, I give you my viewpoint of what we can do to be a supportive parent and what I have learned as a parent of two now grown-up, horse-mad kids.

If I had my time over as a parent when my kids were little, I wouldn’t encourage them to compete, I would encourage them to make their horse their best friend. I would encourage them to sit out in the paddock, brush and groom their pony, take it for a walk and sit on it bareback until it was time to come home at night.

I would teach my kids that horses are so sensitive that they can read their thoughts and that they have the power to turn a terrible day into the best day in less than a second. I would teach them how to read a horse, how to listen to their ponies breathing and how to notice the blinking of their eyes.

To be a supportive parent we need to encourage our kids to develop connection instead of competitiveness. We need to teach that horses are animals who need our respect and care, more than a ribbon or a qualifying score.

Horses, like dogs and cats, should be a part of our family and be treated in that way instead of becoming a sporting apparatus that is replaceable.

I know that many of you will disagree with me here and that is fine, you have every right to do so. But if you are still reading, please hear what I have to say. We support our kids because we want them to become successful and confident in what they do, but too often we unintentionally steer them down the track where external validation becomes more important than internal recognition. That means that our kids are looking for proof that they are good enough on the outside instead of it coming from the inside.

Externally there will always be something that they could have done better, someone who is criticising. People end up selling their soul just to receive recognition and praise from someone else!

I have worked with so many kids who are struggling, where they feel that nothing they do can ever be good enough, kids who are looking for perfection even though they know that no such thing exists.

As a supportive parent, we can teach them that horses never criticise but always reflect.

As a supportive parent, we can encourage our kids to listen to their horses who will tell them if they are stubborn, impatient, cranky, frustrated, hurting or sad. Horses have a wonderful ability to hold up a mirror that gives our kids an opportunity to learn to self-reflect and re-balance. So many vitally important life skills can be learned from being around horses.

Just remember that competitions are only a small part of your kids’ riding journey. You don’t have to be an experienced rider/trainer, a wealthy businessman/woman to support your kids in their equestrian activities. You can all help your kids to recognise that horses are amazing animals who deserve our admiration for their level of tolerance, their kindness and ability to see right through us.

We all started our journey because we love the horse, let’s keep remembering that.

Happy riding everyone.

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