This past week, my daughter, sister and I, attended a Pat Wyse Western (horse) Riding Clinic, a great opportunity to learn, especially, if you are not riding a gaited horse.  Many of the maneuvers need to be performed while the horses gallop and Peruvian Paso’s don’t gallop, apart from the fact that I was riding a green horse and I’m pretty green myself.  I have decided during this past 2 months of training Paloma Brilliante del Sol (Peruvians are registered with Spanish names) that I can learn much about the training of my children through my experience with my horses.

When a horse is being trained it is important to teach them trust, pecking order or respect and to reward them for every correct step.  When they perform in a negative manner they are quickly reprimanded and then helped to perform correctly, consistently and training always ends on a positive note.  So it is with children.  When a child is mistreated, constantly reprimanded, spoken to sarcastically and go unrewarded they learn to mistrust, they reflect disrespect, feel insecure and have the need to acquire rank by pecking on younger or less confident creatures. Sometimes they withdraw and can never reach their full potential.  

As parents we have the responsibility to use a set of metaphorical reins, attached to each child, and just as we use reins to guide a horse, so we use these reins to guide our children.  The headstall cradles the horses head and to it we attach a bit, a gentle bit, holding it at the horses mouth we help it to bend its’ head and to willingly take the bit.  Never cramming it into the mouth banging it against the horses sensitive teeth, inserting the bit needs to be positive, an invitation to the horse “Let’s go ride together, I will be gentle and respectful of you.” Extending the metaphor a little we understand that there are many different types of bits, some harsher than others.  Some horses don’t respond to the gentler snaffle bit and so we use a harsher one, but all trainers agree that beginning with the harsh bit will breed a different set of problems.

So it is with our children, our first steps to care for them should be gentle.  Training begins with the first feeding, changing and the first boundaries that we set.  Biting Mom during nursing is not funny or allowed; removing the baby immediately from the pleasurable activity of feeding teaches him that.  There are so many ways that we teach our children boundaries, from when they are tiny.  This nurturing builds trust and respect between parents and children. 

We fit a Martingale to the cinch, running the reins through the loops so that little pressure needs to be applied to the bit to have effect.  We never want the horses’ mouth to become “hard” (insensitive) because more and more pressure will need to be applied to get the horse to respond.  As the Martingale softens the reining so we need to constantly be aware of how we are correcting our children.  Reprimanding should never be done in the heat of anger but rather after the child and parent have had a chance to cool, although it should be done as swiftly as possible so that the correction is connected to the misbehavior.  Consistency is crucial once again.  Horses and children are intelligent and will constantly test to see if the correction will come this time.  The absence of consistent, appropriate reprimand or reward breeds confusion and distrust.

The reins need to be sturdy and the horse needs to be aware of them.  Thin reins are not felt on the thick horsehide and so we pick them carefully, aware of the sensitivity of each individual horse.  We attach the reins to the bit on either side of the horse’s mouth, and begin the ride.  Our horse is well started, we never get on an un-started horse, because he will buck and likely hurt himself and possibly the rider.  Horses used to be cruelly broken to ride, tied and sacked out and beaten.  The spirit broken they we declared safe.  Good, modern trainers use a gentler method and earn the horses trust by “asking” the horse to accept the training.  The horses instincts to “flee or fight” are understood and respected, the trainer uses this ability to teach the horse to trust him, that he will take care of him, feed him and love him.  Often a trainer will earn the horses trust and then “sack him out” to make sure that he will not startle and be dangerous to those around him, additional stimuli is introduced constantly to make sure that the horse knows that each additional annoyance is nothing to baulk at and because he trusts the trainer he accepts it and is no longer afraid of it.  We can apply this to children in the following way; if our children trust us they will take the natural stresses in their lives in stride.  They feel safe and understand that the additional stimulus is there for their own good.  The boundaries and parameters we set are there to protect them, to allow them to experience stimuli in a safe surrounding, like a round pen or corral is safe to a horse.  Children should be aware of their parent’s interest in their lives, constantly aware of the weight of expectation, aware that they will be rewarded or corrected because we are aware of the choices that they can make.

When we rein horses, we know how “hard” each horses mouth is.  Round and round we ride, posting correctly, making sure that the horse is in the correct lead, he feels safe, we feel safe, knowing that his feet contact the ground in a stable manner, that the reins are comfortably loose and that he has his head, an opportunity to stretch and explore, keeping his head between the reins, pointing in the direction we want him to go.  Watching his ears we can tell whether he is paying attention to us, or whether he is thinking of baulking or testing us.  Raising children we understand that we are holding multiple sets of reins.  Understanding each child is critical, each will act on his own, in a different manner, paying attention is a parent’s responsibility.

Pulling back on the reins will teach a horse to back up, not natural to a horse, but sometimes necessary.  We warn him saying “Back”, then pulling lightly but firmly with both reins, adding an extra light pull with the left rein, releasing the second the horse makes the slightest effort to step back, the release is the reward.  Then still using light pressure with both reins we add the extra light pull with the right rein, the horse gives ever so slightly, maybe takes a bigger step and we release, rewarding again. We connect the steps, rewarding constantly and pretty soon the horse backs effortlessly at the spoken word. 

Our children are often expected to do things that seem to come unnaturally to them.  Potty training, for instance, rewards are crucial and need to be regular.  Many people confuse this with bribery but bribery is used to reward someone for something that should not be done.  Rewards help us often to get a gross job done; incentives help us handle an unpleasant chore.

On the other hand rewarding a horse with a loose rein for baulking, or charging across a field, is as dangerous to him as it is to the rider.  He is fearful and out of control and will appreciate the tighter rein, pulled to the rider’s knee, first circling one way and then the other. He learns to give his head.  He learns that the parameters are to keep him safe, that his owner’s life-experience will protect him.

Often we correct our children without consulting their reasons for misbehavior.  Corrections should be fitting and be as close to the natural consequence as possible, taking into consideration their safety first.  Remembering that they are precious and that they trust us implicitly. Remembering that we train for a short while and that they, like us, have many natural tendencies to overcome.  Those tendencies are often overwhelming because they are connected with the instinct to survive.  When we choose to understand and consult we choose to train them in a way that they will want to follow for their own eternal safety and peace.