My wife and I, have a 8 year old boy which we adopted some time back. He loves Comic books, Superheroes, and the fact that I play Guitar. He now wants a Guitar and amp for X-Mas. I told him, after several conversations with my wife, that he could have a guitar and amp providing that I teach him how to play and that he stays with it.
He agreed to my terms, so yesterday, I ordered a brand new Fender Frontman 25R amp from AMS along with a Eminence Rajun Cajun 10" speaker which I'll be installing in it. As far as a guitar goes, I'll be looking on Guitar Center's website today under their used gear section and see if I can find one of the mini Squier Strats for him to use until he gets a tad bigger. Nothing too crazy for him for now, until he can show me that he really wants to stick with it and his wanting a rig isn't just a typical 8 year old kid's decision.

I had a similar situation a while back with my eight- and ten-year-old grandsons. Both wanted to be rock stars. I loaned then a couple of amps and a couple of shorter-scale electric guitars with the understanding that these pieces of gear would belong to me until they had reached the point where I thought they were serious about learning the guitar.

The eight-year-old fizzled - seems he was much more interested in computer games than learning the guitar - boom, no more amp and guitar. I had warned them both that the first year was the worst - get past that and it all gets easier. The ten-year-old has stuck with it, along with deciding to play trombone in the school band, but I am told that he devotes time every week to both instruments.

On his last birthday I took back the starter amp and guitar I had given the ten-year-old and I presented him with his own amp and full-sized Strat-style guitar. We even hung the guitar on the wall in his room, right above the amp, to make it easier to get going when he wanted to practice. I think he's going to make it. Their father (my only son), is a very good bass player and a reasonable rhythm guitar player, so they play together at least once a week.

I think the ten-year-old is going to make it. Another year or two and he'll be going from Strat-style to real Fender Strat. Goals are good!

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Dennis in CR
Rockin' since 1963

^ That is a great plan. ^

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Sent from my K&E slide rule.

There are now some changes as far as my son wanting to play. He has now decided that he wants to draw comic books like I do instead. I asked him if he was sure and he said yes. Now as far as the new Frontman 25R and Rajun Cajun speaker are concerned, I am going to be keeping them because my Champion 30 combo's transformer died out on me, so I do need something to play through. I installed the speaker in the FM 25R and all I can say is that, Fender needs to make these speakers as part of these amps, even if they have to jack the price. They are a major improvement over the crappy ones that come with them.