Teaching Cross-Eye Dominant 7 year old

[Rackmastr]

Love all the comments here guys, and really appreciate it!!!

I'll let you guys know how I progress. The nerf bow idea is great to shoot in the house and have some fun. I'm going to keep an eye out for a cheap kids LH bow or something that we can fling some arrows with in the yard. Right now I have 2 Diamond Atomics for my kids but I think I'll work on the LH option for a bit and if I can get my daughter to train to shoot LH then I'll grab another one for her in LH model.

Truly appreciate the responses and thoughtful conversation about the subject!

 

[1_pointer]

Love all the comments here guys, and really appreciate it!!!

I'll let you guys know how I progress. The nerf bow idea is great to shoot in the house and have some fun. I'm going to keep an eye out for a cheap kids LH bow or something that we can fling some arrows with in the yard. Right now I have 2 Diamond Atomics for my kids but I think I'll work on the LH option for a bit and if I can get my daughter to train to shoot LH then I'll grab another one for her in LH model.

Truly appreciate the responses and thoughtful conversation about the subject!

NERF guns/bows worked great for my kids. Cheap, easy, safe practice anywhere. Give it a try. Worse case, you guys have some fun for about $30-50.

 

[MN_Bowhunter4]

I have the same issue. I learned to shoot RH and had been doing that, closing my dominant left eye to do so. I just switched to LH and the accuracy is greatly improved. My advice based on my experience is to start her LH. Yes, it's clumsy at first but make it fun and take it slow. It'll pay off in spades later.

 

[Rackmastr]

Kid is shooting great with a toy bow in the house and a great member on here shipped me a LH bow for her to start shooting as well!! Great crowd here and I'm feeling a lot better about this when she can pick up the toy bow and fling some arrows in the house!

 

[C17loadclear]

I too am all messed up...left eye dominant but right handed. whats weird is my dad was a lefty and he taught me how to shoot a gun lefty. I don’t think he ever checked which eye was dominant.

I tried shooting bows righty since there are so many options out there. Finally gave up and switched to lefty and my groups immediately shrunk.

If it is more comfortable for the child ( and enjoyable) shooting with their preferred eye maybe just let them work it out as they get older.

 

[brymoore]

Some very interesting comments on this thread.

Ive trained hundreds of kids in a youth rifle program. You have to switch the shooter to follow the eye. Approximately 30% of shooters will be left eye dominant. My son is one of them - right handed but left eye dominant. He’s shot left handed from the beginning and is now an NRA Distinguished Expert Rifleman. I’ve switched a bunch of kids to left handed to let them reach their potential as shooters. Squinting doesn’t work.

 

[HSi-ESi]

Just an echo to the thread - my wife is RH/LE and my 7 y/o is kind of ambidextrous at this point, but definitely Left-eye. My daughter is RH/RE.

We follow the eye. Even when the 7 y/o was playing with any kind of toy gun, I would adjust his form to left. He shoots a bow left handed (on that point, I bought one of the little Bear compounds that the 10 y/o started with. When it was his turn for that bow, it's super easy to switch to left-hand). Recently they have been having fun with sling-shots and he shot left handed with no coaching.

We make it fun - lot's of fun targets to try to hit, things that make a mess or a sound or the splat targets. The fun part is hitting stuff, so it was a pretty easy convince when it was miss right-handed but hit left-handed.

I would say that the fact you know which eye is dominant puts you in a good place going forward, most don't find out until later in life...