The short answer, by age
An Andalusian can be a lovely horse for the right child, and the right child is usually an older one. Teenagers and confident pre-teens who ride in lessons often love the breed: Andalusians are intelligent, responsive and charismatic, and a quiet young rider with soft hands can get a great deal out of one. For a small child of five, six or seven, an Andalusian is rarely the right tool for the job, and the reasons are practical rather than about temperament. This is a full-sized, powerful horse, and everything about handling one assumes adult reach and adult strength.
Size is the first filter
Most Andalusians stand fifteen to sixteen hands. Stand a seven-year-old next to one and the geometry is obvious: the child cannot reach the top of the shoulder to groom properly, cannot lift a saddle onto that high, broad back, and cannot bridle a horse whose head rests well above theirs. Riding brings the same arithmetic. A fall from fifteen hands is a longer fall than from a twelve-hand pony, and if the horse steps sideways or spooks at a flapping jacket, there is far more horse moving than a small rider can influence. None of this makes the horse bad; it makes him badly matched to a rider who cannot yet manage his scale.
Temperament: sensible, but strong and quick
The breed's temperament is genuinely attractive for families. Andalusians tend to be people-oriented, level-headed for a hot-blooded type and willing in their work. But they are also sensitive and strong through the neck, and they answer exactly the aids they are given. A child who bounces, kicks and pulls in the way all beginners do will produce a faster, more confused horse, and an Andalusian's strength means that confusion has consequences. Under an instructor, with lessons teaching the child quiet aids, that same sensitivity becomes a gift, because the horse rewards lightness almost immediately.
What a good pairing looks like
The Andalusian who works for a child is almost always an older schoolmaster, a horse who has already carried young riders in a riding school or family home and whose reactions are known quantities. Ask specifically what he has done with children, watch him being handled by someone your child's size, and let your child ride him several times in lessons before any commitment. Adults should plan to do the groundwork, the leading, grooming checks and tacking up, with the child helping at the height she can reach, until she is genuinely big enough to take over pieces of the job safely.
When the pony is the better answer
For a young child, a steady pony she can groom, lead, tack up and mount herself teaches more horsemanship in a month than being a passenger on a big horse teaches in a year, and that independence is where children's confidence actually comes from. The Andalusian can come later, as the step-up horse for the keen teenager. Whichever horse joins the family, Family Sharing through KinsLe gives parents and grandparents you select their own way into his profile, instead of that profile resting with a single adult.