I've been playing D&D with my son since he was 5, he's 11 now. Very young players have short attention spans, only about 30 minutes or so. Nowadays he's much like an adult player, only I guess more likely than most to instigate action.
I think the amount of time and commitment needed to play through an AP is not particularly suitable for younger players; generally I think shorter adventures work better. Also APs (at least the Paizo ones I've played through) tend to train players to stay on the rails, whereas the imagination of younger players lends itself to doing odd, unexpected and fun things. So I generally think a more sandboxy approach works better.
Re GMing, my own experience was that at age 12 I loved creating stuff, creating a world, again GM imagination like player imagination is a big asset which APs rather waste IMO.
I think the amount of time and commitment needed to play through an AP is not particularly suitable for younger players; generally I think shorter adventures work better. Also APs (at least the Paizo ones I've played through) tend to train players to stay on the rails, whereas the imagination of younger players lends itself to doing odd, unexpected and fun things. So I generally think a more sandboxy approach works better.
Re GMing, my own experience was that at age 12 I loved creating stuff, creating a world, again GM imagination like player imagination is a big asset which APs rather waste IMO.
