What kind of protective gear should my 4 year old be wearing? He just started doing this and I’m worried he will get badly hurt haha

I would say just elbow and knee pads. Props to little dude for having the guts to send it.🤘🏼

Definitely a full face at the minimum. Take it from experience.
My little fella ate shit a few weeks ago. Went over the bars down a 5ft ramp. 8 stitches in the chin and smashed 4 molars – 2 got pulled, crowns on the others. Got to give it to him though, it hasn’t deterred him. He got straight back on the bike a week later

Please teach him to ride standing up before he starts jumping.

He’s essentially hucking without the necessary stabillity on his bike. He needs to be standing when he jumps. Part of his unstable landing is because he’s trying to stay seated for takeoff and landing.

That unsettled steering wobble as he rides over the features is a red flag that he’s not stable enough to be jumping like that yet.

Forgive me. I see kids ride like this all the time, and these are the kids most likely to eat it badly, likely head/face/chest first to the ground, because it will happen quickly, the bars turn 90 degrees & the bike folds over to the side, especially with that amount of speed. I’ve seen it too many times at the pumptrack.

But hope is not lost<3 He needs to build up his stability a bit more. Granted that may not take long. If he can ride over do those rollers/lips standing without airing and without the unsettled handlebar wobbles, that will be a good sign he’s more ready.

Edit: Side note. Kids often like staying seated when they’re new to riding over rollers. It does feel fun to be seated and riding rollers! But if you’re jumping, you need to be standing. Sometimes kids need a bit of instruction/coaxing to start standing, because for a newb kid rider, standing while riding over rollers may not initially feel as much fun as sitting.

He’s trying to jump like the kid in E.T. Jumping while sitting and pedaling will definitely cause him to eat shit and if he eats it too hard then it might turn him off of riding. Sick that he’s hucking it though.

Get him standing up first

Just googled “fox full face mtb helmet youth sale” and had it return with a healthy $125

I’m not a father but I hear you loud and clear. Dude looks like he’s having a blast! I love it!

Careful with helmets though. They need to be really good. They need to fit right and provide proper visability, meaning perephial, etc. 

Moto helmets are a no-go, especially at this age. The weight difference means the world to neck muscles. You ever seen f1 drivers train their neck? Different animals – I mean let’s not get too off track, but yeah, to a little kid that extra 12oz will be hell – then they will just want to ride without it. Definitely have 2, full and non full, cause always being confined to the full is kinda dumb

Knee/shin pads are nice but again careful. Can’t have the kid suited up like a baseball catcher and expect him to still ride right. Slim, form fitting equipment does exist. 

He should be wearing skate/BMX shoes and riding decent plastic pedals for now.

Chest protectors do exist, and (hold my beer)

They exist and shit but at these speeds and with the weight of him, gravitational impact is way less than say a 170lb pro going 4x the speed. So skip over that for now (chest protection), but probably look into a $10 crossbar pad for the handlebars. Something actually cool or something simple, cause it’s inherently lame. I lost my spleen some years ago – kinda doubt a crossbar pad would have actually helped much but it might have. I was probably going 20+mph onto a handrail I got hung up on, though.

Try to get him standing up going off jumps. Sitting jumping is insane. He looks fearless though from the 5sec clip. There’s a reason racers slam their seats but again, not a father. That’s wild this 4 year old is launching this shit though. That’s usually the age they are just learning to ride in a straight line

Teach him good habits and how to ride. Crashing is part of the sport. No knee and elbow pads are gonna prevent a broken bone, but I would suggest a helmet.

I’ll probably get downvoted for this opinion, but its mostly how I rode growing up. And we didn’t have helmets in the 80s and early 90s.