teaching your own kids

[Bigshadow]

Teach them to play, not to fight for now. Best thing you can do with young kids is teach them some playful judo/bjj/grappling. Kids love to wrestle and roll about anyway, so just get them used to doing them right.
Striking isn't much use to teach children, especially cause of how they can damage themselves from striking.
So instead maybe have them practice playing sorta striking tag, where they have to practice dodging and slipping the other kids hands when they try to "tag them".
Forget the techniques or forms, just lay a nice solid base for learning or using skills and techniques once they're old enough to learn them.

That is good advice for the young children! Teaches agility and good body control which will be useful later in their training. Of course that needs to be tempered with the fundamentals of the respective art or they could be gaining bad habits that will later need to be undone.

 

[TraditionalTKD]

I don't recommend teaching your own kids. You are too close to them emotionally for that. If your kids want to learn, have a black belt or different Instructor within your organization that you respect be their Instructor. Our Grandmaster's son was taught by a Master Instructor within our organization, not by his father. Same principle applies to your wife. Do not teach her yourself.

 

[Tames D]

Ive a two year old son who i would love to start teachin but dont know where to start and at that age if he is to young to even teach, any suggestions and tips would be great as he is quite a bit smaller than most kids his age and i guess i just get worried he is being bullied at daycare

I would start him off with some spinning back kicks... just kidding. Maybe wait till he's 3...

 

[Grenadier]

As a general rule of thumb, we don't let kids start until they've hit 5 years of age. There's a big difference between the physical and mental capabilities of a 4 year old and that of a 5 year old.

However, if there's a (relatively) mature 4 year old, then we might take them in on a case-by-case basis. Not all 4 year olds are created equal, after all...

 

[tchandler]

My teacher has a 1/2hr class for 3yrs-5yrs. This is akin to pre-school. Lots of play time. Fun rolls and falls, mat work. Actually a lot like a toddler gymnastics class with a few front kicks/blocks thrown in. The kids love to say "hi-yaa" as loud as they can. We usually stick around for a short while after my sons class so he can see the big kids (5yr-12yrs) and get an idea of what's next.

The key, as someone mentioned, is lots of playtime/games that incorporate the learning process. (sneaky, the kids a learning they just don't know it)

 

[Shaderon]

I'm going to throw in a curve ball here and say I wouldn't reccommend anything in a striking art or too demanding for anyone under 5 years old, not because of the mental aspect, my 5 year old is very very mature for her age and always has been, so I know different kids mature at different ages (although I don't think a 2 year old could be as emotionally mature as a 5 year old). I mean for physical reasons.

If you look at different sports, the minimum age in most is 5 or 6 years old. In fact in the UK in horse riding you can't get insurance to teach a kid under 6 years old these days. The reason? The bones aren't developed and strong enough to withstand striking or repeated hard knocks like they would with kids over 5 to 6 years.

If you are just teaching them a few patterns and stances, then in my opinion that's ok, but anything that is repeated striking or training to strike, risks permanant damage in bones and joints that will show itself later in life.

Sorry if I offend anyone, but I do feel very strongly about this having done quite a bit of horse riding where I've seen little kids get hurt unnecessarily.

 

[KempoFlow]

I don't recommend teaching your own kids. You are too close to them emotionally for that. If your kids want to learn, have a black belt or different Instructor within your organization that you respect be their Instructor. Our Grandmaster's son was taught by a Master Instructor within our organization, not by his father. Same principle applies to your wife. Do not teach her yourself.

I agree with this wholeheartedly, plus it is a big no-no in our school to teach anyone your skills outside of school. I do help my kids when they need it, but I find they learn better and are more receptive from our Sensei's than if they hear it from me. Plus I tend to expect too much from them so I try to distance the emotions but it can be difficult.