I am curious to know, if you have kids (no matter what age) that play darts, did you show them how to hold and throw a dart the first time or did you just let them pick it up and do it their own way?

The thing that got me thinking about it is the other day my great nephew (3 years old) was watching me play darts. He wanted a go. So I picked him up and gave him some 12g darts that I have.

I held him close to the board and watched as he made a throwing action, then without releasing the dart he proceeded to stick it in the Bullseye, he did this with all 3 darts lol!

Maybe he has dartitis already but I thought it very funny that he stuck them all in the Bullseye.

Anyway I thought about when I first threw a dart as a kid, and I don't remember anyone ever showing me how to throw one, I just picked it up and threw it.

I have a tendency to try and guide my lad who is 6, he has the strangest action I have ever seen, pulls the dart behind his ear!
At the moment he is getting them in the board, which my wife struggles to do - so I think he is on the right track.
He says he is comfortable doing that so I will leave him to it, let him find his own style rather than push him into one.

Like you say, I can't remember my dad showing me, I just watched the greats, Bristow, Lowe, Jocky, Lazarenko and tried to copy their throw, in the end I hold the dart similar to Bristow but my throw is more like Whitlock - 2 styles, era's apart but it works for me.

Hopefully when watching darts the boy is picking up styles, I notice he holds the dart like Wade, almost like he is holding a pencil, and lets face it, at 6 years old, the nearest think darts shaped kids use are pencils and crayons, so good for him.

My son will be two this coming Thursday, so is yet to pick up any darts. He does know what they are though and can say darts, and watches me play and seems to enjoy it. He also sits on my lap and watches it with me when its on TV.

One of the first times I watched darts with him, Phil Taylor was playing and I was trying to get him to say Phil the Power Taylor, and for power he said Apple, which my wife and I found pretty funny, so to him and my wife he is now Phil the Apple Taylor!!

I have no doubt that once he is a bit older, I will buy him some darts and give him the help he needs, I don't think I will show him how to throw though, I will just let him develop his own throw.

so he beat ya Darren hhahaha

Interesting guys, so when they start young, just let them develop their own way?

Phil The Apple Taaayyyylooooorrrr!!!!!!

I have left him to it, he seems to enjoy throwing and so if I hammer on at him it could have a negative effect, I was a bit over keen on teaching him to play 10 pin and now he never wants to go
I just give him advice on his stance and trying to get him to actually aim for a target, other than that, at this stage, I leave him to enjoy throwing.

Cool! lets hope he sticks with and develops into a great player

my boys are 6 &7, and the first thing i went over with them was safety lol! For the first 30 minutes or so I let them just throw their own way. Once they got comfortable hitting the board i went over some basics - parts of the dart, how to score the board, grip and stance. Couple of days later i taught them proper alignment and focus- and it took a while for them to understand it cause all they wanted to do was throw. So i did a few things to keep them interested in the game. First i gave them their own darts and they loved that for about 1 hour. Then they wanted to raid my flight/stem box so i told them they had to earn new flights by scoring well. everytime they score 60 points or better they can pick out a new set of flights. Wasn't long before i was buying flights just to stock for them. Now they each have their own dart boxes with various flight/stem combos that they have earned and they take good care of them i must say.
Funny thing has happened since i started teaching them. My oldest still likes to play but my younger one prefers to call when i'm throwing, and he's good at it too!
Main thing is to enjoy the time together.

LOL thats good, like your way of encouraging them to play better too. I think the maths side of darts has to be a bonus for teaching the youngsters.