How young can a child start lifting weights?

I’m a little hesitant to post this because I have a feeling that many parents would think I’m insane for even considering letting my 7 year old son start lifting weights - so I want to make it clear that this is 100% because he wants to. My son is on the spectrum and has had an extremely hard time doing pretty much anything up until maybe the past 6 months. After an incredible amount of time and energy put into various therapies, he’s finally able to start exploring the world and is discovering things he enjoys doing. One of which is becoming fit and healthy. Which is kind of ironic because one of his absolute most hated therapies has always been occupational where they would do mostly hand exercises because he has extremely low muscle tone and tires much more easily than the average person. It’s really put him far behind with writing and is probably the school skill he’s the most embarrassed by with other kids around.Lifting weights would really help his low muscle tone issues for all types of things so I think I want to encourage his new interest, but I really don’t know where to even start. I gave him so heavier things that were just around the house and he’s been enjoying that, but he wants to go to an actual gym and use real equipment and that’s where the anxiety comes in. I don’t lift so I have no idea what I would even do with him let alone what types of things would be safe for him at this developmental stage. If I started asking around for personal trainers, would any of them have any idea about kids? I’ve done some google searches but that just ended up overwhelming me because of course there’s a million heated opinions about everything on the internet. I’d be happy to do it myself if there was some kind of guide online I could follow. I guess I’m just not sure where to even start.If anyone reading this has a special needs child, you can understand what a huge deal it is when they find something that they love so much that they’re willing to put in hard work. I see this as such an incredible opportunity for him to start growing into his own person and something he can really take pride in. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2wim6ox