Next generation of equipment operators learning!!!

Here is video I found of two boys 5 & 6 being taught how to run a mini excavator. I think we all have a history of learning things young on this board.
Good young excavator operator

Reminds me of when I was 6. On my way home from school the bus past Dad and the hired hand stacking hay. When I got home no one was there. So i got on the Case VAC drove it 1 1/2 miles in the ditch to where Dad was working. Hitched up the dump rack and followed day around with the bucker. Then he told me to take the water jug home and refill it. All was fine until Mom drove in the yard as I was about to return to the field. She didn't think her little boy was old enough to be running a tractor all by him self. Boy was I mad. Then I remember a talk Mom had with Dad. Seemed Mom was doing all the talking and Dad was doing all the listening.

Here is a handy young man. Wish I was this good with my loader.
Good young payloader operator

Its amazing how well some kids can pickup the memorization of controls on a backhoe. A friend of mines son who helps me with maple syrup could actualy operate my backhoe pretty well for 11 years old after just a few hours of running it. His younger brother who was 4 wanted to try of course, so he stood between my legs since he was no where near able to reach the controls from the seat! Well to my surprise within about 15 minutes he could make it do what he wanted, not a smooth operator of course, but able to make the machine function as he wanted and scoop up dirt and dump it where he wanted. Not bad for being 4 years old, took almost all his strength to operate the levers but he loved it, and is sure to build upon those skills in the years to come.

good to teach the skill but maybe should have the seat belt fastened. I think those machines have seat belts - right?

At least it doesn't look like there is a seat belt on the young lad.

That is scary. He definitely should have a seat belt. Or for his small size a safety belt of some kind. And he is carrying the bucket too high for some moves.

I was eight, dad's sc case with cultivators mounted was sitting in the corn field he was at work. Mom was standing in the end rows third round. When dad came home there was a "talk" but since I didn't plow any out it wasn't too bad. It was agreed by all of us I was too young to be in the field by myself. Two years later I was motherboard plowing with the 656 at night

Mold board dang this autocorrect

(quoted from post at 19:57:23 11/23/14) That is scary. He definitely should have a seat belt. Or for his small size a safety belt of some kind. And he is carrying the bucket too high for some moves.

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Wheel loader buckets are almost always high going from pick-up to dump, because the distance is short, it doesn't go up instantly so it has to almost always going up the whole way. If you don't you have to stop and raise just before reaching the truck or bin. Wheel loaders are usually on hard solid ground, if not you have to take it much slower.

My dad got me started in the field just north of the house, then went to town for something. I found out that a John Deere R can turn too sharp with a drag springtooh equiped with those cables that keep the implement straight behind the tractor don't mix very well with a six year old kid at the wheel.
Dad found out the mothers can be extremely protective of their childern!

My story doesn't have anything to do with danger on the tractor.

Dad took me over to another farm about 3 miles from home where he had lent out the tractor, and dropped me off to bring it home. All back roads, everything was going fine, until I came upon a section of fence with the nicest crop of blackberries I had ever seen. Stopped to pick some, thinking about a cobbler. Of course, I first had to figure out what to pick them into. Finally settled on Dad's hard hat, that I was wearing. Had to remove the webbing, of course, and then wipe it out as best I could with my shirt tail. Then picked it full of berries, and home I went, with a big smile on my face.

Soon learned that a smile is just a frown turned upside down. I was about 20 minutes overdue, and dad was getting it but good from mom, who had never been enthusiastic about farming in general or me driving the tractor in particular (I think I was 11 or 12). In the process of the largely one sided discussion, it came out that she didn't even know I ever drove it on the road, as he had (wisely) neglected to mention our present mission to her. As well as a lot of other un-supervised work I did out at the barn, like manure scraping, which included pushing the manure off a ramp and into a spreader waiting below ("For heavens sake, he could have backed right off the end of that ramp and been killed!" I wisely kept my own counsel during this time, but I was thinking "Yeah, and I could step off the curb in front of a bus in town, but I'm smart enough not to do that, too."

Don't recall whether we ever got a blackberry cobbler, but the primary fare around there for awhile was "hot tongue and cold shoulder".