Anyone who owns horses knows there is a lot to do on a daily basis.
Realistically and especially after a full day at school, children are just wanting to play or relax so it’s good not to have too high expectations in the week.
If you’re really strict you can make kids help, but they may resent it later on and if your anything like me I’d rather not have the moaning and just get on myself.
At weekends I do expect help with chores and ‘earning her ponies keep’, however:
Research shows the average attention span for kids is approximately:
- 2 years old: four to six minutes
- 4 years old: eight to 12 minutes
- 6 years old: 12 to 18 minutes
- 8 years old: 16 to 24 minutes
- 10 years old: 20 to 30 minutes
- 12 years old: 24 to 36 minutes
- 14 years old: 28 to 42 minutes
- 16 years old: 32 to 48 minutes
A stable takes me approx 10-15 minutes to clean and my youngest is currently 9 so with 4 to do I’ve had it, although sometimes she’s really helpful and will stick around, mostly she gets bored and wants to do something else after 1 or the second stable.
To help kids get involved I do recommend getting them their own tools.
Ellie is super good at filling hay nets, but again after a few she gets fed up so I give her one or two at a time.
For Christmas 2021 Santa geniusly got her an off road go kart! She loves it and can get around quickly.
With her birthday just after Christmas it made sense to get a trailer so she can fetch and carry! Working without even realising hehe!
For children to bond with their ponies groundwork is just as important as riding, so when I’m around to keep and eye out, Ellie does things like long reigning which helps with her carriage driving skills.
Kids still need to have fun and let off steam so another great purchase we made was this outdoor obstacle course.
So although we get our jobs done it’s important to not make the yard just about the horses and share other interests and fun too.