At the weekend I took my kids (7 and 8) for a body drag, great fun. We also flew the basic one line kite that 7yo got for his birthday from the grandparents. Unfortunately, it seemed to go into a death spiral easily and crash (the engineer in me thinks the tail needs to be heavier).

Any way, that got me thinking, do I get the kids a small trainer kite or a stunt kite? Any value in a stunt kite as a precursor to kitesurfing? Any recommendations on which one to get?

Short answer is any kite is a good kite. I have an imp that will be good for them, slow to react, wrist leash (teaches dropping bar) etc.. I would like a smaller imp/ignition on handles for my own fun. But I'd say any trainer would be good.

I reckon the stunt kite is well worth while ..... a mate and I flew them a lot as kids on the beach I learnt how the kite reacts in different stages and power of the wind window..... little was I to know that later in life this would help immensely when learning to kite...

we would tie a two litre orange juice container ( with about twenty holes through it with a fish knife )to a string at the tail of the kite we would then fly the kite low over the water right at the edge of the wind window wait for the container to fill up the power it back up and fly it over the beach dropping water all over the sunbathers ..... their initial reaction was classic as they though it was bird excrement.

Trainer foils as a training device imho are a waste of money,
A decent one like the ozone imp goes well towards buying a proper kite, a foil kite flys massively different, rigs different, has different safety, doesn't relaunch like a lei kite, it promotes bad initial kite skills when flying a lei , a good depowerable lei kite is perfect to learn on, saying that you still have fun wanging a foil trainer about