Parents want the best for their children. For the child to grow into a well rounded intelligent person, to have lots of interests, and to look forward to learning new things.
Guitar lessons are an ideal medium for helping acheive this.
Numerous investigations by experts in these things have found that when young chiildren learn to play the guitar they find it easier to learn and grasp the basics more quickly.
For the teacher, devising lessons for a young child presents its own set of problems.
The lessons must be interesting enough to hold a small childs attention, but also pass on information in a fun way.
It is best to keep the lessons as varied as possible, as even the most interested child will only have a relatively short attention span.
The one to one interaction with a guitar teacher, may be an area that the child might not have the opportunity to practise in any other part of their life. This will benefit them in their socialisation skills, and could also have the knock on effect of increasing the childs communication skills.
The performance of learned songs by the child will help with self esteem and confidence.
Children want to see results and feel that they have acheived something right away, so what they are being taught should be very simple to learn, but also interesting. If they manage to get fast success then they will be more likely to want to learn more.

Theory can be introduced, but only in little segments with lots of easily attainable goals along the way.
Guitar lessons for kids should be designed specifically for children, and not be just an adapted version of an adults lesson.
Childrens finger size can also be a hinderance to their guitar practise to start with. It is difficult for them to get their fingers completely across the guitar fretboard. Because of this, some chord shapes may need to be adapted.
A C Major chord for instance can be played with 1 finger. Ask the child to fret the note at the 1st fret of the B string with their index finger. If the open G and open E strings are played with this C note a C Major chord results. Other chords can be formed in a simple way like this, and it makes the childs learning and chord changes easier.
The majority of children have a very short attention span and are easily distracted and bored, so strive to make the lessons as interesting and as stimulating as possible.
Very young children can be taught nursery rhymes and very simples melodies that are played on 1 string. It may be slightly easier to keep an older childs attention by teaching them easy, or adapted songs by the artists and pop acts that they listen to on a daily basis.
I have found that advertisment jingles from the TV or theme tunes of programmes can also stimulate interest when teaching children to play guitar.