I taught 4-H sewing for years, and the youngest was 9...it was a lot of fun. My husband did take the foot pedals apart and put a small block of wood in them so they couldn't be depressed to super fast speeds!He also made cubes,kind of like little foot stools for the foot pedals because at 9, it was just easier for them to reach the pedals if they were elevated. Don't know if that would work now on computerized machines...but I would teach kids on the most basic machines I could find, anyway.