it's not a step up.
a step up is simply a jump where the landing lip is higher than the take of lip. They're great for learning tricks on as the landing being just below your wheels at the peak of their trajectory makes for a far less harsh landing than a traditional jump with the landing the same height as the take off.
You and the boy are clearly at very different stages here and it's cool that he's also joining in with you now so excuse him from most of what I'm about to say next.
I didn't really understand what your idea was with the slight kicker at the end of your pallets and a pointless ramp underneath it when you're going toi be landing on the flat grass past it. ie. you've basically built a small kicker drop rather to flat rather landing than a jump with a downwards sloping landing. (I totally get why you'd put it there for the lad). When you first set it up I thought you were going to attempt to clear the entire pallet line to the ramp at the end. (which certainly isn't out of the question for a properly experienced jumper)
although it will clearly increasing your confidence, building kicky jumps jumps with flat grassy landings isn't really going to help you much to learn good jumping technique.
That ramp you're putting at the end is too short and has a little too much of a transition for it to be very useful if you're going to be landing on it from any distance. (Even when your lad is riding it you can see it's more of a ropey spine to get off the pallets than any sort of useful landing ramp) Now that you're confident jumping further than a bikes length a much longer less curved landing would be far more beneficial to you. So if I were you I'd build a longer mellower landing ramp. then using your pallets as a safety landing platform in front of it you can gradually increase the distance from lip to landing? and fine tune your landings (trying to make your landings as smooth and accurate as possible) eventually taking pallets away to create a gap if you feel up to it?
Download this game for your phone (it's free) playing it for a few days will teach you everything you need to know about building/riding rythm sections (successive jumps with steeper lips and landings and bowls). The timing is absolutely pefect in comparison to riding a real bike on jumps like in the game.
Pumped: BMX
Genuinely!
it's a fun game too
