“When can I go hunting with you?” My daughter asked this during dinner one night, her blonde hair tangled from a late afternoon nap. At five years old, she seems to be more aware of where food comes from than some people decades older.

We intentionally moved from city to country as a way to continue our connection between us and our environment, pushing to create a sustainable existence through chickens, a large garden, and property to hunt and fish on. Our daughter is learning as we learn and absorbing information from her new friends (some of who homestead and homeschool) and new experiences.

As I’ve mentioned, my husband hunts (bow, rifle, muzzleloader), so it makes sense that our daughter would be interested in learning. Add to that, my interest in learning archery and the family trip we made to the archery dealership where she watched the entire bow fitting and archery lesson very carefully and it is perfectly understandable that her interest is amped up. We are really interested in archery as a family sport.

Introducing Archery to a Young Child

Which leads us to the desire to purchase a low weight bow for her to use this summer – a step up from the toy bow complete with suction cup arrows that she can already shoot with ease and accuracy, carefully reminding me that “Mom, you have to put the string against your lips” and practicing alongside me during these past few weeks of warmer weather, trees budding and the final slushy piles of snow melting away.

I am interested in hearing about other parents’ experiences in introducing archery to their kids. What age did you start? What type of bow did you use (Recurve? Compound?) Was the interest already there? How did you support and enhance that interest? What did you do? Also, what are some light weight bows to consider for our daughter this spring?

I’ll be setting up an outdoor archery range on our property within the next few weeks and I’d like my daughter to be able to practice along side me with a real bow and arrow. Not only does it teach attention to detail and focus, but it’s a great way for all of us to be outside at the same time — playing, instead of working (considering that we have plenty of work ahead in getting our garden going, food plots installed, and stocking wood for next fall).

I love that she already has an interest and desire to learn archery and that only increases our desire to want to outfit her correctly early on. How would you (as an experienced archer) approach a young child wanting to learn?