My 12 year old son started lifting with me yesterday. He's been bugging me for a gym membership for about a year but I couldn't lift with him last year due to my old work schedule being nights. He loves it so far and it's great to have him as a lifting partner. I changed my workout to use dumbbells whenever possible. That way we weren't constantly loading and unloading the bar. I'm going to keep him using light weights and focusing on form for now. We already shoot together. It's awesome to have him lifting with me now also  

Congrats. I would recommend extremely light weights and have him spend a lot of time on core exercises...Core exercises at his age will be much better for him

My son is almost 5 and goes to the basement with me to lift. I don't tell him what to do and don't care what he does as long as he is safe and has fun. Last week I was doing board presses and had had him holding the boards for me. I will probably be doing lots of board presses from here on out.

Awesome.

If there's one thing I've learned lifting with my wife it's be patient. Not everyone responds well to suck it up pussy, it's time to lift!

Just FYI.

So far he's been the one telling me to suck it up  



 

Haha, my son does the same thing. He's actually pretty good at a couple of them. I always worry about his toes more than anything.

He especially like bent over rows and long bar rows.

Figured I do a 1 month update. He's still going at it with a lot of effort. I've had to modify my workout after he had a couple mild muscle pulls. Young boys seem to think they can lift a lot more than they actually can. It was my bad for not paying closer attention to his form and how much weight he was trying. We are doing a lot more dumbbell work, body weight lifts, and some machine work like lat pulls until he can do pullups. For legs it's been unilateral lifts like single leg RDLs, and split squats. We also have been doing sets of squats all the way to the floor focusing on form. Goals for this year are



1. 1 Pull up (he's a big kid almost my size already so we're not close to this one yet)

2. 25 pushups (probably at 5 now)

3. 25 bw squats with good form (working on bw box squats now. He doesn't have the flexibility to squat all the way down without coming up on his toes with knees way out over his feet)

4. OHP sets with 40 lbs (working with 20 lbs for sets of 12 now)

5. Stronger core



I think I've benefited from the one leg lifts and full squats. My lower back and knee problems are 90% better. Next year we'll start 5/3/1 or starting strength.



 

Hell yeah, I started when I was 12.

This is beyond awesome, OP!  I remember buying a Joe Weider weight bench at Sears with my own money in 6th grade.  I used the hell out of that.

I workout at a gym now after several years of working out at home.  I have a complete set of dumbbells, etc. at home that I don't use.  I also have a 6 year old nephew.  He doesn't seem to have a particular interest in working out but I'd like to buy him a bench for his next birthday and give him my dumbbell set.  

How old to kids have to be to start lifting, and what's the best way to get him started and/or spark that passion for lifting?  He doesn't live with me so I won't be able to workout with him.

Probably any age is good, if they don't lift too heavy. I tried starting him out about 3 years back but he wasn't interested in it then and I didn't want to push it. Last year he started asking to lift with me    



 

I asked here, and elsewhere, about when a kid should start lifting "heavy".
One of my sons started at 11 or 12.

Always a big kid,100# at 6YO, 200 at 12, but at that point, we was getting sloppy, but VERY strong for his age, even before he started lifting weights (lots of hay bales and wood splitting)

Any way, started BJJ at 11, and started running, hard. Started football at same time. I kept him lifting "light".
Right after he turned 14, blew out a knee in BJJ, so I asked all the Docs we were seeing about age to lift heavy.
Was told if he was thru puberty and leaned proper form, he was GTG, so he go'd.

Hit the 1000 lb club while still 14, and now since football ended last fall, he lives at the gym.
He's become obsessed, which is actually starting to concern me.
Trying to get him to back off a bit, and return to BJJ ( he stopped in August when football practice began)
Selling it as crosstraining/improving flexibility, and hope I can talk him into it.

And I'm having a hell of a time getting his younger brother to START lifting: I think he doesn't want to take up something his brother excels at. He also dropped BJJ.

FWIW, I started lifting again 3 months ago, after a 30 year break!