Another vote for the small dob. I say kids will much more happily ignore less-than-average image quality than not being able to magnify to a degree that is materially different from the naked eye view. Regular binos will reveal nothing new on the planets, and only the biggest craters on the moon. Saturn's rings? Clouds on Jupiter? Phase of Venus? forget it. I didn't come to appreciate the beauty of bright, low power views until adulthood, before that, astronomy optics was "proper" telescopes and nothing else. If she's anything like my younger self, she will tire of still only seeing dots through binos faster than you can say "f/4"
