Hello all!
My son is 7 years old. I have preformed a few different effects on him over the past few years just because I love the reaction you get from kids with magic. We love watching magic videos together and he seems to love it. I bought him a cheap magic set for Christmas this past year. I say cheap because the effects were terrible gimmicks and even worse how they were explained. He learned probably 3 effects from the whole set. So I went on to attempt to teach him a few other effects.
As of late he seems to have lost interest. I am afraid that by teaching him I took the wonder and amazement away from him that magic creates. He still does like to watch videos. Saying this of course he is 7 and wants to just perform for Mom over practicing to get the effect right first. I tend to try and push him to practice and he is uninterested in doing so. When he performs a trick well he loves when Mom is surprised and doesnt know the secret.
In my rambling my question is how should I guide him? What are some good things to show him at the age? His hands are small and even though he can do a color change on a card you can see what hes doing.
I want to keep magic exciting for him. So any help with this subject would be greatly appreciated. Thank you all!

When I was younger, my dad taught me baseball and pushed me so much to play it that I eventually began to dislike playing. I feel that this may happen to your son. I think you should be a supporter, rather than a teacher. I understand that he is young, but I think that if he guides his own magical journey rather than being taught it, he will enjoy it more. You should support him by watching him and telling him that he's getting better, but also offer some advice. But don't be pushy because that could turn him off from magic. I've seen pushy parents who always force their kids into pursuing their goals until it really becomes the parent's obsession rather than the child's.

Since he is young, there is nothing you can do about small hands. If there's no way to alter the handling to prevent flashing, then advise him to try magic with props, rather than cards. Or try coins.

Again, if you want him to stay doing magic, you must make it fun for him. So if he wants to stay doing tricks which he cannot do but loves doing, then let him. As he grows older, he, himself, will realize that he is not perfect at some tricks and he will be motivated to perfect them.

So overall, I think you should help him on his journey, but not be the absolute guide. Let him make his own decisions.

I agree with Drewer. My grandson is five and he picked up on sponge balls as to what is happening real quick even thought he did not know how they are done, and I have been doing magic for 43 years, no flashing, he just figured it out and then we started working on his magic. I only work with him when he wants and as long as his attention span is. He is learning at his own pace.

I agree with them above. I learned some magic when I was a kid, and although I could fool some people like my mom, I really wasn't that good. I struggled with it. One of the things was my small hands. But now I am 29 and I am just getting back into magic. If your son truely loves magic, one day he will be interested in it again. I say give it time. Especially if you do magic yourself, it will always be there in his mind that he loves magic. And he'll probably grow up to want to be like you. But not if he is pushed into learning the magic, he will grow to not like it as much.

EDIT: Wait a min. When I was a kid about his age, an old man in a grocery store showed me a trick and I was so amazed by it. And he broke the magicians code and showed me how to do it. But it's a really simple trick. But maybe you could show him this one, and if he doesn't want to learn magic after that, then I say just give it time and perform a new trick for him every once in a while and maybe he'll want to start practicing again. Okay here's the trick...it's kinda dumb, but as a kid it looks pretty neat and he can fool his friends. Tie a long string into a loop. put one thumb in one end of the loop and the other thumb in the other end and put the loop behind your neck with your thumbs hanging inside the two ends of the loop. Your thumbs should be hanging in front of your chest. The illusion is to make it look like the string passes straight through your neck. All you do is take your right index finger and really quick grab the loop from your where your left thumb is...grab it with your right index finger while at the same time slip your right thumb into it and remove your index finger and pull with both thumbs to tighten the loop out straight in front of you. All in one motion. Your thumbs are hanging. Grab left side with your index and immediatly replace with your thumb and pull horizontally. That's it. Simple and he may just like it and it is so easy to perform. Hope that helps.

At 7 he might be too young for tricks that require dexterity with his hands and it's actually discouraging him. I'd wait a couple more years for tricks like that. When I was 7 or 8 my grandfather used to buy me tricks that were simpler to perform, like the vanishing silk (on a pull) or the cut and restored rope (the one with magnets that didn't require any special moves with my hands), or the rising wand (which used elastic). And in a couple of years please buy him a few fantastic books on magic: The Amature Magician's Handbook and the Mark Wilson Course in Magic. The Karl Fulves set of "Self-Working" magic books are just great too (Self Working Coin Magic, Self-Working Handkerchief Magic, Self-Working Paper Magic...there's about a dozen of them and they're all sooooo good).

Thank you to all who have replied. I am letting him choose when he wants to do tricks and what tricks he wants to perform. I asked him if he wanted to put a show together for mom mom, pop pop and other family and he is so excited. I told him to pick out his best 5 tricks what ever he wants. Hes up to 8 tricks he wants to perform. Most are small and easy for him to master. I am going to let him lead his magical journey!

Does your son's elementary school have a talent show? That might something for him to aspire to. There were a couple magicians in the talent show at my son's school, but they all did cheap kit tricks that were ill-suited for the stage. (This was one of those schools where every act gets in because everybody is gifted. It ran close to three hours!)

If he's looking for a talent show entry, I'd suggest any incarnation of "The Vanishing Bandana." It works well for small hands, plays well on stage, and has lots of room to ham it up, it that's in your son's personality.

Here's a demo if you haven't seen it before: http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/S9916

It may be out of production, as Penguin lists several versions as "out of stock." But a well-known online auction site usually has them listed.