How Horses can help with ADHD
Parents of a child with ADHD can struggle to find a treatment to help overcome their child’s challenges. Many turn to medication, but what alternatives are available for a parent who doesn’t want to follow this route?
How about letting the child work with a horse or pony? Equine Assisted Learning (EAL), works by teaching children to understand and modify their behaviour both on the stable yard and in daily life situations.
How can the horse help the child overcome their challenges? The horse is extremely sensitive to the emotions and behaviour of its handler; so the horse will actually encourage its handler to calm down and focus on the events taking place around them. As a prey animal, the horse will react negatively to a fearful, noisy, aggressive or disrespectful handler.
EAL encourages children with ADHD to align their actions with their desired outcomes and to display a calm confidence to the horse. The horse’s response helps children to realise how others see them and respond to their behaviour; this in turn encourages them to modify their negative patterns of behaviour in order to achieve success.
EAL is particularly successful because horses are non-judgmental and mirror behaviour without any criticism. This allows the child to naturally modify their behaviour without becoming defensive as they might with a parent or teacher.
ADHD typically causes a mismatch of thinking, emotions and body language; however to work effectively with horses these have to match, so interacting successfully with a horse really does make it possible to understand how to overcome the challenges of ADHD.
Many children with ADHD are drawn to EAL because it is stimulating and fun. The focus of EAL is not on riding, as participants remain on the ground, but on following the instructions and responding to the feedback of the facilitation team, which includes the horse.
Based on the child’s needs, the facilitation team gives them a set of instructions, such as, “Build an obstacle course from items representing things that distract you throughout the day; then lead the horse around the course.” The child completes the task as they see fit; what is really important are the thoughts and emotions they experience as they work with the horse.
Instant feedback is one of the reasons that EAL with these large and powerful animals is so effective. When a horse responds in the way they wanted, the child knows that they’ve achieved this on their own because they were able to focus and control their emotions.
For more information on EAL and how it can help with ADHD or to arrange a visit to our centre at Sunset Farm, Mill Lane, Fosdyke, PE20 2BL, telephone Mike Burrow on 07729 909186, email info@inspired-eal.co.uk or see our website www.inspired-eal.co.uk.
