DMing for kids

I'm considering offering one of my buddies to DM for his kids' upcoming birthday.

I was wondering if any of you had experience in introducing DnD to 10 year olds.

I've got a pretty good idea on how I would like to tackle it, but I'd really love to hear from experienced DMs.

Stories, tips and warnings would be appreciated.

Thing like how much of the rules should I "burden" them with, how long a session, how strong should I put them on "rails" to prevent chaos, etc.

Here's what I'm contemplating:

Get them to pick a race, a class and a name ahead of time (I'd prepare little presentations). I'd prepare the characters for them with nice little cue cars as to what their "powers" are and how to use them.

Them I'd basically run them through a basic "rats in the basement" + "rid the village of kobolds" mini scenario that I would expect to run somewhere between 1 and 3 hours, depending on how they can concentrate on play.

I'd have some magic formulas and battle cries for them to activate their powers (role play) and would take care of 98% of the stats.

Does that sound like a viable plan?

My nephew (Chosen of Mystra) who is 14 DMs for his younger relatives.

He uses very basic characters no cross classing and all

I did this for my kids...I found the best way was to have them use the templates in the PHB or the premade characters from the 3.5 basic game...using the basic game "adventure" worked well too...

I downloaded a 3.5 conversion of the classic module B2:keep on the borderlands.

a couple of NPCs to keep things moving... went like silk.

(after I threw them in the dungeon for laughing at the captian of the guard... roleplaying was easy/automatic)

they were/are 9-11 yr olds and they are hooked.


Enjoy dude.