My son fell off his horse and now he is scared to ride. He wants to know how to get over this.  

Just like the saying says, get back on the horse. That's really the only way I know of.

I think you should not force him to ride a horse. Besides horse back riding is really dangerous. Look what happend to Superman christopher Reeve. He got paralyzed because he fell down from his horse back riding thing. He died of pain and agony. I would suggest that you should not force him to ride a horse anymore. Why not introduce him to sports like baseball, soccer, swimming. This is just my suggestion. Hope that helps. Good luck.

Unfortunately the best way to do it is get back on STRAIGHT away...I've fallen off countless times when I was learning and it was a lot easier if you didn't leave it till later.

Maybe if your son just spends a bit of time on the ground with his horse and becomes familiar with her again?

the only way to get over it would be to get back on and ride again. i know that is cliche but its the truth.

Well, not that this has to do with what you were asking, but a horse that is less than 2 shouldn't be ridden in the 1st place. They are too young & not done growing. I would definately say that she's not properly broken.

On to what you asked...riding a horse is like riding a bike. You fall off & then you have to get right back on. You can't let something stop you. I have been stepped on & rolled on by horses. I never let it stop me from getting back on. I was riding a friend's horse & she forgot to check the cinch in the saddle & it started pinching the horse. The horse dropped to the ground & started rolling with me on it. I was fortunate enough to be able to move out of the way before I got hurt. I went back the next day & rode the same horse. It's just something that you have to decide to do. I'm not sure anyone can really help with it.

I have been thrown from a few horses and injured. I was scared to get back on, but you have to face your fears.

After a little time it got easier. I was about 11 when I was thrown the first time.

I would suggest that he just start out with the horse in the corral. They can't take off to far in there. This should allow him to regain his trust and confidence with this horse. Once that is regained, then start riding her out of the corral.

I wish you luck and hope it works out.

Well, first off I probably wouldn't have paired a 2 y/o inexperienced horse with a new rider. Not only is 2 years old too young for a horse to be ridden (they are still growing and it can hurt a horses development, check out racehorses for example).

In terms of being scared the same thing happened to me, though I was on an old horse with lots of experience and I was a very experienced rider (Ive been riding about 18 years now). Anyway, the horse bolted because of a kangaroo, I fell and when I was getting on my more younger experienced horses I started getting nervous, which in turn made them nervous and even more jumpy which made me more nervous and so on and so forth.

What I did to correct this was getting someone in to ride my more spirited horses and I got back on my older one, I rode and did more scary things until my confidence grew. Then I got on my younger ones and did things that didn't require anything too ahrd, walking, maybe a bit of a trot in a confined area. And I worked with an instructor just to keep up the confidence. After I worked through a few spooks my confidence is back to where it was and Im back to training youngens :)

If you want more information about this kind of thing there is an amazing woman called Jessica Jahiel who writes the most fantastic free online newsletter. She knows her stuff and has infinite experience and with my experience in this industry I can tell you the information she provides for free is VERY hard to come by even with payment. She basically answers questions each week or so about this kind of thing:

http://www.horse-sense.org/

I really suggest you check out the archives as Im sure someone has already asked this question.

en......you should tell him this is the common situation when someone learn how to ride and there is nothing to be afraid of. I suggest you should let him spend more time with horses, to foster his interest and the same time, he can learn more about horses and will never be afraid of riding again.

the first thing to do is not to hype up the incident and his fear. motivate him to get him back riding the horse, except that there is no other way to beat this fear.
whatever game you play once in awhile you will definitely get her but that doesn't mean you have to stop playing all together . there are people was met with serious accidents during games and still once they recover from the injuries they are back again playing the game. that is the only way you can beat the fear and nothing else

Put him on a more experienced horse for a while to rebuild his confidence.
Then have an experience rider show him on his horse that his horse can be fine.
Let him decide when to get back on the horse he was on when he fell.
Make sure safety equipment is in place properly. Helps with confidence.