Chance's Mom, I will share some of my research, and after you read through this you may reach the same conclusions we did, or you might not. But it was very helpful in chosing the guitar and lessons for my son this year (he is 14 now).

Learning guitar: Acoustic vs Electric?

We actually started him learning on a classical guitar, and as he gets older and gets a job to buy more instruments he can expand his guitar holdings--he also loves electric, but sees why learning on classical is a good idea. For now he's using a loaner, but we have a Spanish guitar on order (through the studio where he takes lessons) that will be a good student guitar that he will take several years to outgrow and "will be a good second guitar for later when you're going somewhere that you don't want to take your best guitar." He's enjoying the lessons, where he is getting a lot of theory and good musical training, not just learning songs. "You won't find any other activity in your day-to-day experience that duplicates the way you have to hold your hand to play this guitar," I hear his teacher telling him as he guides him into the world of classical guitar. They have a variety of things they do during the lesson, including improvisation, which his teacher feels is essential and which Dylan likes best of all. It's really a wonderful thing to sit in the waiting room and listen to those lessons.

Stilly River Sage