Teaching Kids to Shoot

[Dave R]

My daughter (age 10) had a friend over today.  Daughter and I were shooting my small pellet gun when the friend came over.  They greeted and then went off to play. 

After they played for a while, my daughter told me her friend was interesting in shooting the pellet gun.  Would I teach her?

 

We called her mom to ask permission. Which was given positively, along with thanks for checking. 

Having served as rangemaster for several cub-scout day camps, I developed a few preferences in how to introduce a kid.

1. Teach the 4 rules.  Make sure they can repeat them back.  Make it light and friendly, not heavy.  "Here's the rules of safe gun handling."  Don't scare the kid to death, though.

2. Keep the operating instruction minimal.  Easy to absorb.  Just enough to make hits, at first.  Curiosity will take care of the rest pretty quick. 

3.  Keep ranges short and targets easy to hit.  Missing makes interest wane fast.  Hits are fun.

4. Watch for cross-dominance, which is much more common that I would have thought.  My daughter is cross-dominant.  Right handed, but left-eye dominant.  Turns out her friend was, too.  I read many opinions on how to handle, and think the best option is to teach them to shoot with the dominant eye.  i.e. I taught her a left-hand hold, because she was left-eye dominant.  Same with friend.

We shot paper, first, twice, just so she could see where the holes were going in relation to the sights.  She was on target.

Then we switched to tin cans.  Kids love reactive targets.  The friend hit the can first time.  You should've seen her smile.  Daughter and friend then traded shots for another 10 or so.  Lots of smiles, and positive reinforcement.  Celebrating every hit. First few shots, my daughter loaded.  Then the friend loaded the rest. 

Then they were on to something else. 

Feels good to introduce another kid to the sport.  I figure that's kind of an inoculation against hoplophobia.

[Old Grump]

Good job, love teaching kids, especially girls.  At least I know thats one group unlikely to go out shooting out windows and insulators off of phone and power lines. 

[pax]

Beautiful post, Dave  -- good for you!

pax

[Michael]

DD and I shoot playdough "bad guys" with Airsoft indoors, crackers and old cookies outdoors.  My version of "recycling" 

[Steve Ronin]

what a waste of good cookies... you actually LET them get old?

Great job with teaching the kids.  I am a Cubmaster, and am planning on doing "Range Day" this in April.
My son has been thru it already, and is getting his own Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas.

[sixboysdad]

This story made my heart warm just reading it.  I love teaching kids how to shoot.  They listen, and absorb.

I spent 3 summers running a rifle range at a Boy Scout camp, and the best ones to teach were the ones who had never shot before.  They were like little children (OK, there are those who would say that 12-yr-olds are little children, but let's not quibble), open, eager, and willing to do what you told them to do.   

And teaching them while they are young is a good way to also alleviate the "forbidden fruit" syndrome, where they are tempted to take a firearm without permission, simply because they are curious about it.  Satisfy the curiosity early, train them on safety, and turn them into shooters. 

Don't do that, and you turn them into accidents waiting to happen.

[springmom]

I used to always say...."we need an applause smiley".  Now we have one.  Several, actually.  So.....

 

(Well done, in short).

Jan