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Closed shoes, and safety goggles are a must, but 16 as a minimum age is silly. Many, if not most, kids are quite capable of operating a lawn mower well before that. Parents should oversee the first time or two, then let them go. Farm kids have been operating equipment for eons. Accidents happen, but training and acknowledging the maturity of your kids can alleviate the bulk of the risk.
I ran crews for large landscape company when I was much younger, I think we had 5 maintenance crews on the road and 2 development crews and about 20 drivers/machines on hire. and a number of FTEs at the base.
I started as a grass cutter and moved up to managing most of the workers/ dealing with clients.
Here is my viewpoint.
Lawn mowers remove the toes and fingers of children.
Those letting a 10-14 year old use a gasoline powered mower are doing so from ignorance.
I have seen plenty fingers and feet damaged. I have had people manage to set fire to both machine and man.
I have more enough stupid stories of grown men and woman getting themselves injured while using everyday machinery; and that was with safety equipment and training.
The safety gear that matters is steel capped boots, and steel capped boots along with steel capped boots. I cant tell you how many toes have been saved by steel capped boots.
Impact sun glasses are great in that they work, and people will actually wear them all the time.
If you think your 10 year old or 12 Year old is ready to mow the lawn with a gasoline powered mower, you are either poorly informed, stupid or have an exceptionally large and mature child.
If you think your 10 year old or 12 Year old is ready to mow the lawn with a gasoline powered mower, you are either poorly informed, stupid or have an exceptionally large and mature child.
I have no doubt that some 12 yr olds are more mature than some 20 yr olds who are cutting lawns for a living at that point.
I have no doubt that some 12 yr olds are more mature than some 20 yr olds who are cutting lawns for a living at that point.
True, however, I was being snarky. I don't believe children should be using power equipment due to possible injuries (fingers, toes, feet, eyes, etc. - as previous posts have outlined). That said, anyone operating that equipment (adults included) should be wearing appropriate protective gear. Whenever I see someone wearing flip flops or worse mowing bare-footed (and yes, I've really seen this), I just cringe!
I started mowing around age 11 I think, only the backyard which was flat except for a slight slope at very back. Our front yard was on a steeper slope and my older brother typically did it. He basically graduated from the backyard to the front yard. It was self propelled mower. I was supervised the first few times but after that I was pretty much on my own, though sometimes I needed help getting it started.
Most if not all mowers now have safety features that make it pretty hard to get a foot under it. A handle that has to be held to engage the blade and sometimes the engine.
I don't think there is a magic number. Its going depend on mower type, the kid's strength and the yard itself. I don't expect to be in my current house when my sons reach mowing age, but I would definitely wait til they were 13 or 14. The backyard has pretty steep slope to it and the front has a mess of above ground tree roots.
I URGE YOU TO NOT LET THEM MOW until 16 at the earliest. ER doctors agree.
Don't gamble with your kid's feet. Amputation is forever. Kids pull back a running mower. They lack the coordination to do this. Or they turn the powered forward-movement mower and get toes, feet, amputated.
There are other jobs they could do, that don't carry that risk.
I grew up in the country where kids were routinely expected to help out with chores around the farm such as mowing, bush-hogging, and splitting wood. I have literally never met one single person who lost a toe, a finger, a foot, a hand, or any other body part to a lawn mower as a child. I have met a few adults who went to the stupid side and amputated something, but never a child. While I do feel that safety should be the first priority, people saying that children shouldn't do anything dangerous is a large part of why the millennial generation are getting a bad rap nowadays. It seems that sometime in the 90s young parents started listening to these morons spouting off about how children shouldn't do anything that is too difficult for them and should always be able to see themselves as winners - and now we have a generation who, for the most part, don't understand what "winning" is and don't want to do anything that requires effort.
As so as they can walk they can push a $$$$$$$ mower
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