Is it a Horse Camp?

Or a Social Skills Camp?

How About Both?

HorsePower Camp is a Horse Camp that teaches Social Skills to Improve Emotional Intelligence

Who can benefit from the HorsePower Summer Camp?

• You want your child or teen to improve their social skills and relationships

• You see your child struggling with friendships and confidence

• You want your child to be kind and resilient

• You hear about the importance of emotional intelligence to future success

• You want your child to have a good head start with skills that help them succeed in life

• You want them to learn creative problem solving skills while having fun

• They love horses and want to learn how to have a good relationship with them

Depression and Anxiety has doubled in children and teens since the pandemic. So many more children and teens are struggling with anxiety, fear and loneliness. These issues can affect your child academically and socially.

As a parent, it is hard to watch your child struggle. You have tried talking and reasoning and anything else you can think of but they are still struggling. Perhaps you have seen them become more screen focused and less focused on developing and maintaining friendships. As children and teens focus more on screens they are not practicing creative problem solving skills and as a result, they are becoming more passive. At the same time there is more pressure to get “likes” or followers on social media. They are continually comparing their normal lives to the highly curated and edited “perfect” lives. As screens are used more and more it creates dependency on the easy “dopamine” hit that screens and gaming provides. It is easier to get immediate gratification in a virtual world vs in real life “messy” relationships. This makes it harder to feel joy.

My kid isn’t struggling with depression or anxiety, will it benefit them too?

Absolutely, yes!

Emotional Intelligence helps kids succeed in school and friendships!

This summer horse camp is designed to help your child get confidence and practice the skills they need not only to succeed academically but also to be kind, resilient and successful at home and in relationships. We give them fun and unique opportunities to practice social skills by working with our horses. Since horses are highly sensitive animals of prey, they require a calm, kind and focused approach. In other words, they require that you have good social skills and emotional intelligence. You cannot just “make” a 1200 lb. animal move! Campers will learn how to manage their anxiety in the moment, problem solve creatively, communicate clearly, and work together with the other campers to form a relationship with the horses.

We focus on social skills to improve emotional intelligence. The HorsePower Summer Camp focuses on developing the skills of Responsibility, Respect, Relationship Skills, Empathy, Boundaries and Choices and Consequences. Not only will your child learn about emotional and social skills, we teach them the science of using their “whole brain”. This way they leave with a practical understanding of how their brain works and how to harness their brain so they can improve their ability to do well in life.

Each day they will learn a “mindfulness” skill to help your child reduce anxiety, stay in the present moment and make good decisions. We focus on simple skills such as deep breathing, grounding, awareness of body tension, being in the present moment, and relaxing their body. All of these skills help them use their whole brain. We help campers recognize how anxiety, negative thoughts or just not caring will affect their body and brain and will affect the horses. We teach the skill and then practice it before working with the horses. As they work with the horses they will be reminded to practice this new skills. Once again campers get to see how when they use they skills, the horses will relax and be ready to work with them. And of course, these skills transfers to life and relationships with people.

Learning about these social skills is important but what makes our camp different from other social skills programs is that they get to practice what it feels like to use the skills as they work with horses.

They will get immediate feedback from the horses about what works and what doesn’t. They will learn how their negative thoughts or anxiety will negatively affect the horses. But more importantly, they will see that when they change their thoughts to a healthy mindset AND manage their anxiety they see a positive shift right away with the horses. Instead of adults telling them this is true, they will actually experience how using mindfulness, social skills and healthy thoughts will work for them! We partner them with horses to practice these social skills because horses don't lie and won’t hold a grudge so your child will know immediately when they succeed. The children and teens we work with have said they feel incredibly powerful when they are able to lead a strong and beautiful 1200 lb. horse.

You can also be confident that our program is based on research that shows that the ability to manage emotions and social situations is more vital to future success than IQ. These so called "soft skills" are becoming more rare and are highly sought after by employers and colleges. For those working or heading to college, they will learn valuable work skills that will set them apart from their peers. The best part is that these skills are not just "taught" but practiced with the horses! Unlike IQ, emotional intelligence (EQ) is a learned skill that can be improved upon and research shows that having a high EQ leads to greater future success than having a high IQ. Kids of all ages who come to camp are so excited to hear that EQ is a skill they can learn and improve unlike IQ! This is so empowering for the children and teens that attend our camp. It is a fun and unforgettable way to learn valuable social and emotional skills necessary to succeed in life.

Or if you child just loves animals and horses in particular they will love this camp. Not only will they learn valuable skills for human relationships they will learn so much about how to have a good relationship with horses. They will learn about how horses think, how they work together as a herd and how they communicate. This can give your child a great foundation in horse behavior that will help them in riding or just being around horses. We do not provide any riding experiences as we work on the ground.

Click HERE to read more about how to choose the best summer camp for your child.

Activities are all ground-based. No riding. No horse experience needed.

We are offering our Horsepower Summer Social Skills Camp at our Hampshire, Illinois location for a small number of children ages 7 to 18. Each camp will only have a maximum of 8-10 children so that each child will get individualized time with the horses.

If you would like to be notified of the future Summer Camp Openings for Child and Teen Summer Camps

Click HERE