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Carissa Short's avatar

Love this! It is always so frustrating when parents try to coach from the side for horseback riding! A lot of times they give incorrect advice or psych the kid out when all they need to do is help give confidence and cheering on.

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Melissa Jacobs's avatar

Oh wow, that's unfortunate. I imagine it interferes with the rider/horse relationship too. Does it also distract the horse?

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Carissa Short's avatar

It definitely can! Which can make things dangerous, or costly mistakes can be made that may result in other safety concerns.

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Henny Hiemenz's avatar

I’m with this 💯.

I actually wrote a piece a while back about ways people could do better at being a youth sport parent:

https://open.substack.com/pub/hennyhiemenz/p/empty-calories-and-male-curiosity-b17?r=24w1jq&utm_medium=ios

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Melissa Jacobs's avatar

Great stuff, Henry! Particularly like your points about cheering for other kids and learning to say, I don't know.

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Henny Hiemenz's avatar

Thanks Melissa!

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Coach Kou's avatar

Great read,a large % of kids quitting sports occurs in the car ride home

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Melissa Jacobs's avatar

Very true and very sad. The only thing that needs to be said by the parent in the car ride home is, "What kind of ice cream do you want?" All game talk should be kid-driven!

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