Serenity Farms Offers More Than Horse Riding Lessons

By Mahlon Smoke

Serenity Farms offers more than just riding lessons. Working with children and adults with riding horses, owner Jean Laffin also teaches how to brush and groom the horse, grounding exercises before mounting the horse, and how-to better bond with the horse. They also offer lead line pony rides for small children and pony riding lessons.

Serenity Farms also offers tours of the farm where children and adults often feed the chickens, rabbit, horses and cows. Or you could take a walk around their pond and see wildlife there. The biggest draw of Serenity Farms is how serene and quiet it is and allows people to truly let go and reconnect with the nature around them.

Laffin loves helping and teaching people how to care for horses, while also learning to calm and ground themselves mentally. Because of their young age, a lot of children don't have the words to explain what they're feeling or don't know how to properly express themselves. It's because of this, Laffin teaches through active participation on how best to control their breathing and be positive and confident when riding the horse.

"Children really resonate well with teaching through actions, its more than words and allows them to really understand and express their emotions," said Laffin when talking about her favorite thing when working with children.

Laffin, a retired IPP employee, has experience working with youth in social services and foster care. Along with licenses to care for and how to ride horses, she uses these skills to help teach 'mindfulness'. Allowing the child to learn through actions they perform, allowing themselves to be aware of their emotions and how it affects the horse.

Once the children master this and ride the horse by themselves for the first time, "They get a huge boost in confidence, and you can see it in their face, their posture, everything," says Laffin. She added, "One of the best things about horse riding is giving that extra confidence boost."

Through horse therapy, children and even adults learn about empathy and how their emotions have an effect on others, both good and bad, as well as how to apply them to their everyday life. "Almost anyone who comes here leaves a little happier and a little more confident." says Laffin.