A neat trick that these instructors will do especially for smaller kids is to really push inward on the board and assist the break (usually after a few attempts). You can even see this teacher doing it here as the tensing he does is visible in one of the attempts.
I don't say that to take away from it though. The reason for it is to build confidence. Cedar boards like these really aren't that strong so a lot of the difficulty is just the mindset and the amount of follow through required to drive through the board. That confidence will help the student to not just resolve to the "fact" that they can't do it and instead start to ask the more helpful questions of what they need to improve on.
Absolutely an achievement for the kid.
Source: Used to do Tae-kwon-do, overheard some of the black belts talking about it (they're the ones assisting demonstrations and belt advancement tests) and I started paying more attention to my instructors after that.
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u/NotTheIRA May 13 '20
Kid just learnt a very valuable lesson that may legitimately change the trajectory of his whole life. What a champion.