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My 9 and 11 year olds are riding, and falling off, enough to justify wearing pads. I've never worn any so I don't know anything about them. My kids are not riding competitively or particularly gnar so looking for something lightweight and unobtrusive.
So, what affordable pads for skinny young kids?
£20 youth shin pads (661) on CR at the mo - they fit my lad and his legs are like pipe cleaners with a knot in the middle. Particularly for just a bit of confidence I reckon shin pads are where its at. Elbows might be handy too, good gloves a must obviously .. offroad though I don't think I've ever hit my elbows, its usually 'pedal, meet shin' or straight over the bars and nothing much is going to save your collarbone.
My kids have the G-Form knee and elbow pads.
They both like knee pads, they both need persuading to put the elbows on, but seeing as I don't really like kneepads and don't wear elbows I'm not one to talk.
Knees get worn on pretty much all their rides, elbows at races or when we're riding somewhere very rocky e.g. coed-y-brenin or the peaks.
Kids especially never seem to have the worst accidents when/where you’d expect.
Mines 9 and despite racing DH, its car parks and messing about at trail heads that seem more a common place his pads get actually used.
You don’t need to be riding gnar to land on a sharp rock with your knee... it can happen between a car park and trail head etc.
We had a light pair for pedal days but he found his full-on Fox Launch Pro (Jnr) were just as comfortable (with label removed)... so long as you don’t want to wear jeans over the top. We ended up giving away his Dianese? XC pads ...
For me I have no problem getting him to wear pads ... even his Launch Pro are shredded and he’s been old enough for a few years to realise the protection they have provided.
If I was to take his 4 biggest crashes... they split up between places you’d wear full on and not 50/50... the two non full-on he just happened to be wearing them because we’d been riding serious gnarr... TBH we wouldn’t have bothered wearing pads at all if that was all we were riding that day.
Just my 2p worth... but when a crash does happen it’s always better to be over protected than under protected.