My 5 year old loves the pinball.. he gets into the older cabinet games as well. Just today he was playing GnR while I played Tron right beside him and he screamed out "MULTIIIII-BAAAALLLLLL" at the top of his lungs. Of course, we were the only people in the joint. Proud father.

My gf's three-year-old loves my pins. It's so fun to hear him exclaim "I'll be back!" over and over after a game of T2.

We watch my wife's friends (8 and 11 year olds.) They love coming over to play the pins. They are good kids and have no problem leaving them alone with the pins.
I say its the parents. Few people in America take responsibility for anything these days, especially their kids.

Some parents just think pinball is for kids. I've had them over here and some of them shoot one or two balls get bored and go to another pin and another etc. In the meantime the machine is banging away doing a ball search. At other times I've seen them just pressing the flipper buttons over and over with no ball in play - bored. When I say something a parent gets ticked off like they are high end toys for children. I tell them to take their kid to the wild and find route machines or buy your kid a pin of their own. A few kids come over and their parents watch them like a hawk. Once in awhile a kid shows up that really takes to it. Not too long ago a 12 yr old girl came over that was crazy about pinball and she wanted to stay longer. As a general rule I try to keep kids less than 10 yrs out. Maybe it's the attention span or all the X-Box, Nintendo and WE games they already own plus all the hand held’s. That's just my experience.

My brothers 10 yr old son doesn't really care...he plays one game and is gone. I try to get him into it but...I guess it's not for some kids. For that matter it's not for some adults either.

I get a great mix at the golf course. When the kids are out to "mini golf" (yes, we have THAT, too) they frequently go bats*** when they see the pins and sidetrack themselves for a minute or 5.

On wedding nights, (yes, we do THAT, TOO!!) it's the guys...escaping the dance floor to have a few cold ones while they play the silver ball...

My 3 year old loves to play and his 6 year old brother cheers him on! My youngest did the "multi-ball" cheer the other day and I thought it was awesome!!!

I think parents should give their kids a pin before a X-box or PlayStation because it may give kids interest in pinball.

My 3 year old grand daughter LOVES playing, but it makes me cringe with the constant flipper pushing and nasty, sticky fingers on the glass. I am seriously thinking about buying her a Zizzle POTC.

Kids today are really stupid (or a lot of them are)...

Thats what too much TV and too early exposure to electronic videogames do, IMO. Kids seem to have zero interest in knowing what they're doing, and just expect to stand in front of something and flail on it and have fun. I was crap at pinball at that age, and it wasn't much fun because I lost so fast, but I knew how you were supposed to play!

I've never seen a kid playing pinball machine on location without a parent telling them what to do I see lots of them pretending to play, or assaulting the plungers.

It's not just the kids, it's the parents as well.

"I've never seen a kid playing pinball machine on location without a parent telling them what to do [] I see lots of them pretending to play, or assaulting the plungers. "

Maybe it's different in my house because I own two.. in fact, I'm sure it is. You're right, most kids wouldn't know what to do with a plunger. However, my kid knows not to hit both flippers at once (ever) and even traps the ball consistently and aims his shots.. freakin' bobby fisher of pinball he is.. come see the wonder! $5 a head!

Yeah theres no arcades anymore, as a child I played them when my daycare went on field trips like the skating ring and bowling alleys. Evertime I saw a pin and the playfield looked cool I had to play it.

I had a fund raiser and saw a kid using a pop can to hit the flipper button and to force the plunger in real hard. A parent gets mad at me for saying something. I've did a few things in the past to discourage kids from coming in my basement, so I don't have to say something to the parent.
- A "2 Live Crew" CD on the jukebox "Nasty As We Wanna Be" when I play it the game room clears out.
- Photo's of nude women on the wall or in the apron. When the parents see that, they leave the kids at home or get them out.
- A pair of hand cuffs lag bolted into a stud with one end open. I've got the key.
Yea, I know these are extreme measures. I tell people all the time. Sorry, I have no toys for children, I have no play area for children and I have no one to watch your children.
It all has to do with respect. I have no route guy that comes around here to replace parts or do cab work.

I will go one step futher and say that the younger generations of today are just
"button mashers". They're use to console gaming, and for them pinball in it's simplicity
is too complex for them to grasp.

Too complex because it actually forces them to pay attention to what's going on. Alot of
kids today have the attention span of a knat. Laziness also comes into play here.

Pinball requires one to stand on their feet. Console gaming allows them to sit on their ass, not much physical exercise going on when you're sitting on the couch mashing buttons on an
XBOX360 or PS3.

For the young children and kids that "get it" with pinball, I salute you. For the one's that
don't, go back to your console and let it rot your mind.

My four year old loves playing my machines!

I have two sons. 5 and 8. They both play my STTNG daily, about 3 games. After I walked em through it the first couple times, they got it. It's awesome now watching them actually aiming shots, and shooting lit targets. You can just see their little minds engaged, eyes on the ball. They're doing better and better.

What's awesome is, if their doing decent on STTNG, I can't wait to get a simpler pin. They should kick ass on that.

I love it when they come up to me, "Dad, can we play pinball?"

My 5yr old nephew enjoying some TOM this weekend...

matt2.jpg

"How do they always go SDTM?"
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I had a couple 7 and 8 year old girls over my house yesterday, they'd never seen a Pinball machine much less played one.

They're not the most intuitive things a first glance. It's not always clear how to start the game up, and once you do gameplay/rules doesn't always make sense. I saw a post about Mustang earlier today and the guy posting said he put about 30 games on the machine and was just beginning to get an idea of what how he was supposed to be playing.

Older machines probably play better for kids, but the newer ones have more lights and sounds to attract them, but the goal of playing (other than to keep the ball in play) isn't particularly clear.

After a few games the girls moved to my MAME machine and Frogger made the most sense, as that's similar to Crossy Road.

My kids are starting to get it, but other kids, no exposure, no clue.