So You Want to Buy Your Child a Bow

When picking out a child’s bow, or youth bow, the most important thing to remember is that that child will be growing up soon. Many fathers or mothers, whatever the case may be, sometimes get very excited thinking about the possibility of their little one following in their footsteps and becoming a great archer. Most children want to do what their parents are doing, and most children want their moms and dads to be right there with them when they’re participating in an activity or sport. Sometimes, however, a parent may misinterpret the enthusiasm of their child. A very small child’s attention span is more often than not very short. A parent should take this into consideration when purchasing a bow. My suggestion to them is to purchase a very simple fiberglass bow with string. I know when my first grandson was born I was excited to teach him how to shoot a bow. I started him out with a simple fiberglass bow and string, and that worked out well. He really enjoyed shooting at my 3D target. However, the low poundage bow, in combination with dull points found on youth arrows, would often times bounce off of the 3D target. This sometimes presented a safety problem because of the bounce back. This would also cause frustration for my grandson as he wanted to see his arrows stick into the 3D target. I then made up some arrows with a sharper point. Then I had to quickly teach my grandson not to run with the arrows and point them toward the ground when walking with them. As my grandson grew I was anxious to buy him a compound bow. This turned out to be a bad investment. I bought him what I considered to be the best youth bow on the market at that time, the Browning Micro Midas compound bow. The bow was very nice, and he loved it. The problem was my grandson didn’t live with me, and he was only able to shoot on occasion. In between those visits he would grow. This meant constant adjustments on the bow. My suggestion to parents is to let the child stay with the simple fiberglass bow until you see how excited the child is about the sport of archery. Let’s face it, in today’s world children have access to all types of entertainment. It may disappoint most parents to know that some children are content to shoot three or four arrows, and then go back in the house and grab a computer game or watch cartoons on television. This is perfectly normal. I suggest parents allow a child to be a child and do not push them into the sport of archery or bowhunting. Do not get discouraged. If you’re the type of family that goes to a lot of archery 3D shoots and events, there’s a good chance that your child will get the archery bug. Another consideration is that you may be having more children, and it may be necessary to purchase more archery equipment. Make it easy on yourself. You may be like me and have bows hanging all over the walls in your archery room that your children and grandchildren have outgrown. If you are nuts about archery, never fear there is a good chance your child will love archery also.


Copyright by John W. Marks