The trick is to give them a tree pruning chain saw, one intended for climbing tree loppers to use one handed - it's an ideal weight for nine years old to use two handed.
And to supervise.
As tested on my children and grand children.
Also, if you happen to have a furnace with a large pot of molten glass, five year olds are capable (given a stand) of making marbles from the furnance and will do that for hours if you can spare the time to let them.
You sound like my dad in the 90's, when it came to modems.
Same tool. Good uses. Bad uses. The bad doesn't negate the good (c.f. Bittorrent).