My granddaughter got introduced to sewing machines early. At about 4 she would sit on my lap and sew. By 6 she was running my Kenmore. When I bought my Janome 6600P I took her with me and she prefers that now. She is 11 and loved the decorative stitches and thread painting and knows when she needs to rip out stitches. I say go as good as you can afford. I heard about a Brother recently that you can usually buy at Walmart or on Amazon.com for just under 200.00. Unfortunately I don't have the model number but it got great reviews. It has alot of decorative stitches, letters for monograming (she made a collar with a name on it for a stuffed animal). It has needle up/down option! I looked at local Walmart and they had it! I will be getting this for her 12th birthday as they are moving away. The kids today are way more tech saavy. I am going to go through some mending with her and a few more projects so when she moves she can take off and do what she wants. The one thing I did was tell her. If you have a question about how it is working ask me. And if it is not doing what it is suppose to - stop.
Diane/Wyoming
PS I have a Janome Jem and I am getting rid of it because none of us like to use it. I have it sold. It sews awesome but there is no 'creative' stitching as the stitches are preset. If they are working on a thread painting project there is not much room because of the harp space.