Abraham Lincoln once answered the question, “How long must a man’s legs be?” saying “long enough to hit the ground”. This applies to the age at which a beginning skateboarder can start to learn, and it’s not a smart answer. Several factors are involved. First of all, you must judge his physical and mental maturity. Does your child have a good sense of balance? Is he coordinated and has good depth perception; By this I mean the ability to judge distances and heights? This is needed to help avoid bumping into things and, as he progresses, to know when to jump onto a ramp. Ideally, you should have good judgment, but given the fact that rational faculties in the brain’s prefrontal cortex don’t fully develop in men until they are in their 20s, this may be too much to ask.

Perhaps the most important criterion for determining the age of a beginning skater is mom’s pain threshold. Her son will fall, cry and hit himself. Our son broke his wrist 3 times in his first year. In the 8 years since then, he hasn’t had anything more serious than cuts and bruises. There are things he can do to reduce the frequency of injuries. Statistics indicate that about 50% of all injuries occur in the first week of learning to skateboard. This suggests that you get him a trainer for the first 7-10 days of actual skating. A coach may be a responsible neighborhood kid or a “semi-pro” skater. And much of the learning can take place on a level, paved path. Eventually, you’ll want to consider a skateboard camp like one of Woodward’s Skateboard Camps once you get the hang of some of the basics: starting, braking, stopping, turning, then rolling,

Another way to reduce injuries is to give your child the proper safety equipment. Don’t buy him equipment from a toy store. Go to a real skate shop or an online skate shop and get real gear, starting with a good board. The absolutely necessary companion to a good board with good wheels and trucks is a helmet. Not a bike helmet, or a football helmet, but a real skateboard helmet that fits you NOW. Don’t buy a helmet that’s too big on the theory that it can grow into it. If it doesn’t fit right now, it won’t. to protect he correctly now. He takes advantage of the extra money to get a good helmet that fits him now, even though you know he’ll soon outgrow it. Wrist, elbow and knee pads are a very wise precaution, especially for beginners. You may find it difficult to keep him on pads and protectors as he gets older, but he must, must, must insist that he wear his helmet every time he gets on his skateboard.

So that’s the complicated answer to a simple question “how old should my child be when they start learning to skateboard?” Sometimes at 3 or 4 years, and under normal circumstances, certainly at 5, 6 or 7 years. Pretty similar to the guidelines for learning to ride a bike.