My son is 5 and has been saying for several months now that he wants to learn the trombone. My guess is that he is far too young (I don't think he could even hold it!) but I wondered what age children start learning it and whether they start directly with the trombone or progress from other instruments?
Thanks.

I don't know anything about brass - but our local music authorities suggest Year 4 (so about 8 or 9 yrs old) as a good starting point for trombone.

I've never played brass, but you may find your local band will start children reasonably young. The bands in my area tend to start people on cornet and then switch them to trombone or lower brass later if they don't have a strong enough embouchure for cornet.

I started at the age of 8. You don't only have to consider the weight of the trombone but the arm length of the person holding it. It wasn't until I was about 11 that I could comfortably reach all the positions

Yamaha make what is called a "compact trombone" for young children. This has a valve so that you don't need to stretch to 6th and 7th position and it is made of relatively light metal. My daughter started with one of these when she was nine but her teacher said he has used them succesfully with 7 year olds.

My daughter also plays in a wind-band run by another trombone teacher and he said he once had a five-year-old beginner who could only reach fourth position. The teacher said progress was very slow and he had to write a lot of his own material but that he enjoyed the challenge and the child enjoyed lessons and has continued.

One other solution which I saw in the UK when I took my daughter to a brass day organised by the Proms was very small children playing slide trumpets.