All three of my kids started "hunting" at around age 4 or 5. I would wait for a warm october afternoon, pack a small backpack with munchies and drinks for em and go outfor squirrels. I would only shoot squirrels that they spotted and pointed out to me and of course let them carry thesquirrel around.

By the time my oldest son was nine, he was ready to sit with me all morning on the first day of rifle season and we "hunted" the same way.
We did it legally and he didnt shoot before he was 12 and I think back at how nice it would have been if he could have been the primary hunter back then.I just think with most kids attention span at the young ages that we ought to cut them a little slack even on the small bucks.

I'll tell you what would make sense though.when a kid gets his first license at whatever age, he gets one or two special buck tags thatare not dated. the kid gets to harvest one or two sub AR bucks and then he/she is huning as an adult. that special tag gets put on the sub AR buckwith the regular tag siginifying it as a "first" or "youth" buck.

That does two things. it preserves the purpose of relaxing the AR's for kids but doesnt let it go on for several years if the kid is fortunate enough to have the opportunity many years in a row. It also makes that one or two tags something valuable to the kid and maybe those jackasses that would shoot a kids deer would give it more thought isf the kid only had one or two chances at a small buck.