My 16 year old son is keen to learn kiting but 50% of people I speak to about it say it's too dangerous and they know kiters who have been badly injured.
Is this through kiters being overadventurous or do kites easily get out of control?
Guidelines for kiting safely please...
Thankyou
(and yes I do know I'm overly protective)
I've been skate boarding, snow boarding, skiing, water skiing, snow kiting, sky diving, paragliding, speed riding etc etc
Kite surfing is the safest form of extreme sport
Even swimmers if they want to go for championship they'll end up under surgery for their shoulders so as long as it's all just for fun he will be safe
New equipment (Safety Technology) a few lessons and it's more safe than crossing the road.
Get the grom going and let his generation really figure out what is possible..
With 1522 post on Seebreeze, you are thoroughly researching the subject before giving the go ahead to your son
extreme sport ? , its as extreme as you want to make it ...
regularly see john who must be 70 if a day out at corro's on his surfboard having a great time .
get a couple of lessons from a good instructor , buy some reasonable equipment , ( not a 3 year old C kite ) and if possible find someone / somewhere to help him out after those first couple of lessons for a little while till he has it all figured out , and yes once he starts doing the handle pass's he will probly want you to trade in that windsurfing kit
My 11 year old finished her lessons about 5 weeks ago with AKS, the opportunities to go out have been a bit scarce since, but in as near perfect conditions as we can get, she goes out and body drags and practices getting on the board.
We have some other kiting parents with 8, 9 and 10 year olds learning on Ozone 2.5 Uno's (4 line inflatable trainer) and 4m Catalysts.
If you're concerned about safety go along to the lessons or even learn together, new equipment is a lot safer as some of the other posters said get new equipment and definitely get lessons.
Your profile says Bulls Creek there are plenty of schools both north and south of the river, go down talk to some instructors, or even customers to get a feel for the right school for you.
I have a 9 year old who has kited for nearly a year without incident. Spent 6 months flying a trainer, then made the transition over to an inflatable. Now holds his ground on a TT.
Biggest thing I reckon is your preparation - don't send them out in less than ideal conditions until they are ready for it (at my kids age anyway)
Good supervision from you if your proficient, or an instructor goes a long way (or both). Might mean you miss a few sessions yourself, but will be well worth it later on!
I raced supersport bikes before taking up kiting so this is safe as knitting to me.
Let the young fella give it a go.
My son's 14 and he's been doing it for about a year and he absolutely loves it.
It's not dangerous if you use common sense but lessons are a must.
We have some firm safety rules that we follow:
1) no kiting in dangerously strong wind or frontal/stormy weather
2) no kiting in offshore wind
3) no playing around on terra firma - kiting is a water sport
4) no jumping over solid objects
Also when learning pick a less populated part of the water, preferably downwind from other water users.
I reckon about 90% of bad accidents happen when those rules are being broken.
The video below shows him kiting in October last year when he had less then 1 year of experience:
Nope stick to windsurfing..
50% of people.. Interesting numbers there. 50% of people I speak to think that windsurfers are mid life crisis types.
Reading "his" profile, I think "he" is a "she".
There are hundreds of thousands of people riding around on kites in all sorts of conditions, using all sorts of gear, with all sorts of levels of skill.
The vast majority of us are all here with all bits attached. It's as safe as you want to make it.
The absolute rule number one of all "extreme" sports is to have an escape route and maintain it at all costs. In kiteboarding that means keeping yourself far enough away from hazards so that you can ride out anything that goes bad.
That is, keep plenty of distance to rocks and roads and power lines and stuff downwind. Soft sand and water = good. Rocks, boats, people, etc = bad.
Ride the other way and get out of the way of hardcore dudes, the incompetent, and grumpy old windsurfers.
Lessons are a good idea, especially for a kid.
Used gear is ok but make sure it is no more than two years old at most.
By far the biggest decision you have to make is how much you trust your son. Is he a smart, sensible, reasonably athletic 16 yo? Or is he an immature deadhead? If he is sensible enough then he will be fine.
If he is a deadhead then getting heavily into an all-encompassing and healthy sport might mature him. It's happened at our beaches with some 16-18 year olds reaching world class skill levels after a year.
BTW. Perhaps you should take up kitesurfing too. I windsurfed for 20 years and now I'm into my 12th year of kitesurfing. I sold my windsurf gear 10 years ago. You and your son could go down the beach to kite in the family car with two full quivers of gear and have room to spare. That gear will do you quite happily in winds 12-15 up to 30+ knots. Flat water or surf.
More BTW. One of the dads has a mini-van. He takes all the kids kiteboarding. The van rolls up and half a dozen kids pile out and off they go. Dad launches and lands kites and used to carry gear back after the walk of shame. One of those kids is now a sponsored rider and the others are not too shabby.
It is pretty safe these days, if I can learn it without hurting myself anyone can. The only injury I have seen this season in Lancelin was an foolish euro that was boosting/kite looping in 6 inches of water, last I heard he ended up in RPH with a screwed up shoulder. Not even a normal 16 year old that thinks he is superman is normally that stupid.
His ego and confidence will get the better of him at times, but kiting seems to be self-correcting, when you get a bit over-confident you undoubtably screw something up and end up self-rescueing and spending the rest of your session untangling your lines. Nothing worse than untangling your lines (again) whilst everyone else is out on the water carving it up.
But same as all the others,
lessons are an investment,
buy a new or late model kite, bar and lines
don't go out further than you can swim back
always untangle your lines before you leave the beach 
I personaly believe that the above argument is rubbish, trainer kite do not have depower.
There is nothing to learn from them,flying a kite is not difficult, you pull left and it turns left, you pull right and it turns right.
There are no skill in flying a trainer kite.
It makes money for the retailers and it is a good toy for the kids but pretty useless as a mean to learn kitesurfing.
You may get a vague idea of the wind window and realise where the power is but it takes 5 secs to work that out on any kite.
Lessons however are necessary as they are are many safety issues to take into consideration and the advice of an experience teacher who can assist your son is extremely valuable.
Lessons will also be conducted on a real kite that doesn't zoom around like a mosquito after a red bull bath, he will need to learn about positioning, launching, powering,depowering, safety release, rigging, self rescue.....
Money well spent when it is your own flesh and blood
At Least 2 people will die in W.A road accidents this weekend 
Dont drive him to the beach or anywhere ever again....
unless your car is wrapped in cotton wool too
oops,don't burst their buble,
there are a lot of skill in flying a kite right and it is definately more evident in light winds, the capacity to get the maximum pull out of the kite by constantly moving it in the window and adjusting the power on the bar.
It is like watching pro surfers in one foot mush, they seem to generate their own power and are so smooth in linking turns that they don't kill the speed.
It has no similitude with a trainer kite
Get lessons so you know all the safety then spend time flying an actual kite and you are on your way!
To put things in perspective,I do a lot of offshore yacht racing (I.e. Sydney to Hobart) many see that as dangerous.. I spend a lot of time on the water undertaking various activities, and have a lot of training and understanding of safety. I am more worried about some idiot running a red light at an intersection and cleaning me up as I cross the road!
I've hardly been hurt from kiting, my boardshorts over my wetsuit always protect me, shazam baby!
it's getting way too crowded out there on a good windy arvo. You should definitaley insist he learns something else.
Maybe that thing where they chase a rolling cheese down a steep hillside, that looks awesome.
