Children (6-12)
The hand of a seven-year-old measures, on average, between twelve and fourteen centimetres long. A standard flared handle (FL) is designed for an adult hand of eighteen or nineteen. The mismatch is no detail: it conditions the grip, the transmission of the stroke to the impact and, in time, the postural faults that settle in before anyone notices them. Equipment for children is not a scaled-down version of adult equipment; it answers to a body still growing, to a strength that has not yet arrived and to a technical apprenticeship that needs clear feedback, not power.
Weight as the first filter. The variable that most conditions children's equipment is the assembled weight. An eight-year-old weighing thirty kilos cannot hold a 180-gram bat for an hour without the arm compensating through tensions that distort the stroke. The reasonable range for this age band lies between 140 and 160 grams assembled, depending on build and exact age. Reaching that weight calls for a light blade — between 65 and 78 grams — and thin rubbers, on sponge between 1.5 mm and 1.8 mm, that do not add the 45-50 grams per side a tensor at maximum thickness weighs. Section 11.5 develops assembled weight as a general variable; here the criterion is stricter, because the body's margin of tolerance is smaller.
The blade. An allround all-wood five-ply, without composite, with light species in the core — kiri, balsa or ayous — meets the requirements of weight and response. The stiffness should be low or medium: a child needs to feel the ball in the hand in order to learn to meter the stroke, and a stiff blade with pronounced catapult turns every contact into a lottery of hits and misses that teaches nothing. Composite blades make no sense at this stage: they add speed the arm cannot control and stiffness that masks the quality of the stroke. Five-ply constructions are covered in 9.4; light core species, in 9.2.
The handle. The shape matters more than the catalogue suggests. An adult flared handle forces a small hand to open the fingers around the flare, which produces an unstable grip and excessive pressure of the index finger on the backhand rubber. Straight handles (ST), or flared ones in a reduced size — which some makers offer in their junior lines — allow a more natural grip and a cleaner transition between forehand and backhand. Handle shapes are described in 1.6; what matters here is that the choice is functional, not cosmetic. A handle that does not fit the hand prevents the correct grip from being learned, and correcting a badly learned grip at fourteen costs more than teaching it properly at eight.
The rubbers. Control rubbers or soft entry-level tensors, on thin sponge (1.5 mm to 1.8 mm) and soft hardness. The aim is not to generate speed or maximum spin, but for the child to feel the relationship between the stroke and the result: strike softly and the ball goes softly; brush it and some spin appears. That linearity is essential for motor learning. A hard rubber, or one with a pronounced catapult, breaks that relationship because it amplifies disproportionately beyond a threshold the child does not control, and the result is an erratic game that consolidates no pattern. Thin sponge also helps keep the weight of the assembly within the tolerable range.
The pre-assembled bat. In this age band, a pre-assembled bat of reasonable quality — not the bargain-bin bat, which belongs to another universe — can be a legitimate option, as developed in 18.6. Manufacturers offering specific junior lines usually calibrate weight, sponge thickness and handle type for a child's hand and strength. The drawback is the lack of customisation; the advantage is that someone with judgement has already taken the decisions a parent without experience of the sport cannot take.
What not to do. The commonest error — and the most damaging in the long run — is to give a child a bat “to grow into”, choosing adult equipment on the assumption that they will catch up. An offensive composite blade with tensors at maximum thickness on a nine-year-old does not accelerate progress: it obstructs it. The child develops compensations — a clenched grip, a shortened stroke, a fear of full contact — that solidify into habits before the body has the strength to use the equipment as designed. It is better to change the set-up every two or three years, following the growth, than to force a bat the body is not ready to move. Section 17.2 covers the transition to more demanding equipment when adolescence allows it.