Ridecamp: RE: [RC] Junior rider Welfare

Been watching this thread with a great deal of interest because Egypt is
one of those countries where many, many children work from the time they
can walk. I appreciate concerns about safety and health and they are
justified, definitely. Kids here get hurt, get killed and so on...many
times more due to a lack education about risk than anything else. There
is a fine line between safety and restriction and I don't know that I
really would want to draw it with a broad brush. 

My kids grew up on the sea. My son started sailing with us on Lake
Ontario at 2 yrs, my daughter at 4 months and by the time they were 4
and 7, they were doing blue water sailing in the Mediterranean and
living on the boat summers in Cyprus...this is just a nice 32 ft
cruising sail boat. Did they wear lifejackets on board?...you bet. They
were also tooling around in a Zodiac by themselves by the time they were
8. When I got my first two horses, they were moderately interested in
riding and I let them learn when they wanted to. Neither of them turned
out to be avid riders but I never either pushed them to do it or not to.
I did, however, insist that they do things safely and sanely when they
did them.

The American school that my kids attended in Cairo has undergone a
radical change with mandatory drug testing, rules that the school can
apply sanctions to any kid off the school grounds still with a book bag
and so on. The administrators who are applying these rules argue that
it's for the good of the kids...I have problems with that and did so
when my kids were students there.  When society decides to "keep kids
safe despite the wishes of the children and the responsibility of the
parents" it's on its way to a pretty bad crash, IMO. There are kids who
at 5 can ride horses for long times...it's up to the parents to watch
out for them and NOT to push them beyond their limits. I've never seen
one of these kids, but I see kids who spend all day running errands for
their parents on donkeys on the rural roads here. At 10 my son could do
a better job of navigating than his father and took a watch during the
day on his own (with people awake) and helped me on night watches. Maybe
the people who need the regulation are the parents more than the kids.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.ratbusters.net 


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