I'm not sure where to put this, but I hope people will see it here. Say your child was enrolled in a lesson and camp program at a local nonprofit horseback riding center. Not a therapeutic riding center, just a program that uses horses and riding lessons to teach life skills and increase kids' confidence, leadership abilities, communication skills, etc.

The program has levels of achievement, similar to what you might find in martial arts. There are specific goals for each level and when the instructors can check all of the boxes in that level, the child moves on to the next level. All of this is very simple, casual, low pressure. No formal testing or anything. It's mainly to be able to explain to parents what we are working on and why, and for kids to be encouraged to work to progress through the levels.

Now, if these were called "levels" but were named by colors, i.e. "rainbow level," "green level," etc, would this be TOO much pressure/competition? We want to provide a way to chart learning and progress but want to keep it REALLY positive. I'm adding a poll, but please leave your thoughts as well. I thought maybe we could call it the "Colorful Riders Program" but that seems so vague and doesn't imply progress at all. Now we're thinking of just calling it our "Horsemanship Program" and handing out little colored ribbons that say what level the kids are at. When they move up, they get a new ribbon. This way, every kid gets a ribbon (all kids start at Rainbow Level). Hope this makes sense. I'm really curious to hear input from a bunch of parents! Thanks!