When choosing guitars for children, its usual to have two different points of view. The practical parents and the image conscious child themselves. For the parents the most important consideration will be whether the chld will be able to learn on it easily, if it is the right size, and is it basically fit for purpose. The wanna be pop star on the other hand will be concerned with how it looks, colour and maybe which flavour of the months name is on the box.

In this day and age there is a vast array of models, so finding an instrument that looks nice and is practical shouldn''t be too difficult. The big companies such as Fender, Gibson and Ibanez make children size guitars.
Models are available adorned with cool kid stuff if required, and Hannah Montana endorses quite a few instruments too.

It might not be very cool to todays youngsters, but a good starting guitar for them is a childs size nylon strung guitar. This will be kinder to soft fingers, and as long as you dont buy a bargain basement one, it is more likely to stay in tune. Electric guitars for children are likely to have cheap tremolo bars on; kids like these. Unfortunately despite looking good they can make keeping the guitar in tune a nightmare.

With a childs first guitar, it might be prudent not to go overboard and spend a fortune. If your child sticks with it for a few months and looks like they really enjoy it and intend to stick with it, then that may be the time to go for something better.
Please don''t buy the absolute cheapest instrument you can find though, this is unlikely to be much good, as the chances are it will go out of tune easily, and will be very difficult to learn on.
There are also some excellent guitar packages available, which have all that is need to get up and playing straightaway.