Time out with ponies: «A safe place to learn outside of school»
Ms Pfiffner, who is your time-out offer aimed at?
We step in when the school-child-parent system reaches its limits and needs quick relief, a change, a breather. We support children and young people from nursery school to upper secondary school who need a break from school – whether due to family crises, school anxiety, behavioural or social problems. With us, they have a safe place to learn and develop, where they can gain some distance, find peace and work on their issues.
What can children expect during time-out?
We are based on a farm and look after a maximum of three children. This enables us to respond to their individual needs. Where possible, our programme is based on Curriculum 21 and focuses on two areas. On the one hand, action- and experience-oriented learning, which enables children to practise skills such as self-regulation, empathy, problem-solving and social skills, but also gives them easier access to topics from mathematics, technology and nature. Mathematical understanding can also be trained by working with stones or weighing feed for the animals. The other focus is on remedial education lessons, in which we deepen school content.
They also rely on support from ponies. What makes them valuable?
Animals mirror our behaviour; they give children immediate feedback on how they come across to others, without judging them. Through interaction with animals, children learn a great deal about how to communicate effectively , deal with stress and approach others . Animals also have a calming effect because they direct our mental focus to the here and now.
We have also found that children benefit from the structures involved in animal care: mucking out, feeding, cleaning – these tasks often serve as icebreakers, enabling initial contact to be made. We leave it up to the children to decide how much time they want to spend with the animals. Some are very keen, others more reserved – but the animals leave no one cold.
More about the time-out offer in the Zurich Oberland: ponykids.ch/time-out
