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My 9 year old daughter is starting to show a large interest in my magic.....she is performing (for grandparents, siblings, etc) a few small and basic tricks. My delema is this........how & what do you teach a child, and how do you explain to them the reason you are telling them, but they are not allowed to tell others? In order to get her rolling, she obviously needs some help, but she is not sure about why she can't tell others, but I can tell her? Anyone else experience this, and how did you explain it to the child?

Pretty much the same way I'd explain it to an adult. My 9 year old daughtr has no trouble understanding that unless you have a serious interest in performing magic, then knowing it's secrets only ruins the magic.

I'm teaching my 12 year old daughter and have started her off with a few self working tricks and at the same time have given her a deck of cards to learn the basic handling and shuffling techniques.

She understands that she shouldn't tell people how the tricks work simply by explaining things in a slow and plain way - no fancy or long words. You could also show her an example of how a trick that she has been practicing can be spoiled by having told someone else. Get her to go through the performance and then at an appropriate moment you introduce the spoil, and then talk about it afterwards.

Nothing like learning through experience.