All - I have the greatest daughters in the world. They are turning 3 and 5, and all about being little girls with pretty dresses and bows. At the same time, they are also all about the outdoors - fishing, boating, catching lizards and turtles and so on. Last year, for her 4th birthday, my oldest daughter wanted a toy gun, so she could start practicing safety. This was after she tried to talk me out of my 30-30 when I got a new '06. So, this year, she is asking for a bow that shoots arrows. I am actually impressed with some of the toy bows I see. They are moderatly realistic looking, and still shoot toy arrows with suction cup tips. My question is, given that my daughter is left handed, how critical is it that I get her a bow she can shoot left handed? I am right handed so don't really have much experience with trying to do anything with my weak hand. Obviously she is young, and I am sure can adapt to a right handed set up, but am I possibly short changing her in the future? I mean, I would like for this toy to be something that she can actually start using and developing some form, even if its just about proper draw and safety. I don't want to try and force a right hand development if thats not the way to go. I did see another toy bow that was more ambidextrous, and really pretty much along the lines of a recurve. The one I saw that looks like a compound is right hand only, and I know she would get a kick out of it since it looks like mine. Anyways, not sure if I explained this well, but as always advice is appreciated.
I bought my 6 year old boy & 8 year old girl bear scout bows. This purchase ended up costing me almost $2000. They ended up loving archery but started loosing interest quickly because they had a hard time aiming without a peep. So I broke down & bought both of them parker buck shot bows. These are great, my 6 year old has no problem shooting it. And my 8 year old daughter is shooting groups at 20 yards. The purchase of the parker bows for the kids lead to a bow for my wife also (Diamond Razers Edge). With the set ups & arrows for three bows it gets spendy. I didn't want the kids to loose interest. They could hit the target at 10 yards fine with the bear scout, but thats about it. Couldn't hit groups & the bow didn't have enough guts to go much farther.
Forgot to mention, the boy is a lefty. You can reverse the cams on the bear scout to set it up for a lefty. Good luck, hope I helped a little.
Make sure you check his eye dominance. Just because he's left handed doesn't mean he should shoot lefthanded. If he is right eye dominant, you should just get him started shooting a bow that way.
Well, this is why I like this site so much. You guys have me thinking a little differently now, which is a good thing. First, I will look this up, but what is the best way to check eye dominance? As to the other comments, it looks like you guys are suggesting more of a "beginner bow" type setup, where I had been thinking about more of a "toy bow." Here is the one I was originally thinking about - http://nxtgenoutdoors.com/detail.cfm?productID=27 Here is why I liked it - mostly becuase it shoots arrows tipped with rubber, while still maintaining the look and somewhat the feel of a real bow. My logic is that I want my daughter to actually be able to play with this without me standing right next to her. If she wants to shoot a tree in the backyard, or move around some little foam targets - she can do that. Granted, I know that even the rubber tips can injure someone if they get shot in the eye but on the other hand, if one of the arrows goes over the fence, its not likely to injure the neighbors dog or anything. The Bear bows you guys suggested look more like beginner bows with those arrows having something close to field tips on them. So, it would seem like she would need to esentially focus on a fixed target. It would also seem that I would likely need to supervise her much more closely. Those aren't neccesarily bad things. Just remember that she is currently 4 years oldl turning 5. So, as safety conscious as she is, she is still a kid and I want her to be able to play with her things. I wouldn't probably let her play with just a "toy' bow without me being around, but there is a bit of a difference between me being in the backyard with her cooking dinner or something versus active supervision. On the flip side, I am also a big advocate of getting kids things that are functional and work well. I think if they have a better experience earlier due to have decent equipment, they are more likely to experience success and stick with it. My example here is that when this daughter was 2 years old turning 3, she wanted her own fishing pole. So, she picked out a Zebco 33 combo instead of one of the toy "Barbie" poles (which I can't stand). As a result, she has caught hundreds of fish, some pretty nice catfish and trout that she never would have been able to land on a toy pole. So, I guess I see two different logic paths here. Any thoughts on either and based on experience , what do you guys think is the better way to go?
My BIL bought the same brand of bow for his son, not that exact bow though. The rest broke the first day that he shot it and it doesn't shoot right without it. I bought my kid the Bear Brave III and he can still shoot it with no problems. My daughter is left eye dominant so I have her shooting left handed with the same bow with no problems. She is 10, so it is very little for her but she still enjoys shooting it and has many bulls eyes with it. As for eye dominance, here is a link that can help you figure out her eye dominance: http://www.archeryweb.com/archery/eyedom.htm\ Good luck!
