took kid shooting- can't close one eye

[bluebayou]

What the crap?  I didn't anticipate this problem.  I got a booster seat for the bench, ear plugs, ear muffs, water, hat, you name it.

This is my 6 year old son, by the way.  We get out there and he tries to shoot a couple of times from the bench with 22 Cricket.  It has a peep sight, figured that would be the way to go.  He is consistently shooting foot to the left.  He insists that he is looking through the peep with sight alignment. 

Turns out he is looking through the peep with mainly left eye (left eye dominant?  he is right handed).  He can't close either eye independently.  I tried taping over his left sunglass lens (didn't try the right, dang).  He didn't want any of that. 

It tried my Savage 22 with scope and he could see the target and hit the target, but the stock is way, way too big for him.

Anyone have ideas? 

I don't want him to get discouraged.  Got my FIL's Marlin 60 for spray and pray time.  Was thinking about putting cheap airgun scope on his Cricket (it is an Bushnell 4x with AO).

[bilmac]

I'm no expert, but I think you can't change eye dominance. The only choice is to teach him to shoot left handed. Not good because it limits gun choices I know.
My dad was right handed but shot left handed. Got along fine with levers and pumps. I'm right handed and shoot pool left handed, but left handed pool sticks are chiep.

[victorcharlie]

As a kid I shot left handed but did every thing else right handed.  I shot with one eye closed, and shot very well lef thanded.

I am right eye dominate, and changed while in basic training.

[oldandslow]

You can be left eye dominant and learn to shoot right handed. My daughter was born left handed and this was back in the day when all the child experts were hollering " Don't let your child be left handed. It's a right handed world so make them switch to their right hand". We did and she had no problems until the first time I took her to shoot when she was about six. She was trying to lean over the stock and sight with her left eye.

To make a long story short, I worked with her and she learned to shoot right handed. She learned well enough that her big brother bragged about what a good shot she was to his buddies and she embarressed some of them by shooting better than they could. I certainly wouldn't want her shooting at me at any distance.

[billy_56081]

Why would you want to teach him a bad shoting habit right off by having him close one eye? If it is an eye dominance thing, teach him to shoot as hid eye dominance tells him.

[beemanbeme]

Maybe you're going too fast.  At the house, set up a practice range, without the excitment of live ammo and you and him practice snapping in to achieve proper form and such before you try the rifle range.  That's a whole lot of excitment for a 6 yo in and of itself. And then to expect him to concentrate on bench technique too. 

[bluebayou]

?

Uh, maybe I got my wires crossed somewhere.  I have a degree in neuropsychology and one in biology.  I am hip to "eye dominance".  That isn't the issue. 

What I am asking is when do most kids learn to close one eye?  Should he be able to do it now?

I don't think that I am rushing things, but I will consider that.  We are going to set up in the backyard today with a scoped pellet gun, but it is a Gamo with a crummy trigger pull so I have low expectations.  Just need to see if he can shoot with a scope before buying one for him.

Billy, uh, how can you shoot with iron sights with both eyes open?  Am I missing something?  If you are talking about shooting with scope and both eyes open, then "yes" I agree.  That is why I switched to my 22 with a scope after he was consistently missing. 

I am not trying to be close minded, maybe I just didn't phrase things well.  He says that he is excited about going to range again this week.  We will see.  I don't want to turn him off of shooting.

My mother was Army for 39 years and never learned to close left eye to shoot.  She has shot left-handed all of her life by closing her right eye.  I could always hit a baseball FARTHER but not more consistently when I batted left handed.

[billy_56081]

I guess I have always been taught to shoot with both eyes open, iron, peep, red dot, bow and scope.

[jjas]

My son (who is now 10) had the same problem as your son.  Quite frankly, he was just too young and couldn't close one eye while holding the other open.  I thought he was left eye dominant and we tried shooting left handed and it didn't work @ all. 

Finally I just let some time pass and we did other things together until he got a bit older, around 8 or so, and we went back to the range.  He was able to shoot right handed, close his left eye and now he can bang spinning targets all day @ 50 yards with a bolt action .22 mossberg (mid 1950's model).

In his case, he just needed time.

Jim

[bluebayou]

I guess I have always been taught to shoot with both eyes open, iron, peep, red dot, bow and scope.

huh, I have been shooting both eyes open with scope, red dot and bow....never tried to shoot both eyes open with irons.........what do you know.....I never even considered both eyes open with irons.  I got the Marlin out of the closet and it is awkward (to me) but I could see sights with both eyes open.

I don't think that I will change from left eye closed, but you were right, I was wrong. 

[crustaceous]

Relax and make sure he's having fun. That will keep him from getting discouraged, which from my experience is all you can do at age six. And don't worry, by age ten he'll be out shooting you!

[alsaqr]

Relax and make sure he's having fun. That will keep him from getting discouraged, which from my experience is all you can do at age six. And don't worry, by age ten he'll be out shooting you!

#1

[Swampman]

Since the vision in my left eye got a lot worse, I shoot a lot better.  I've always squinted my left eye when shooting.  As long as I'm hitting everything I shoot at, I don't worry too much.

[DalesCarpentry]

I'm no expert, but I think you can't change eye dominance. The only choice is to teach him to shoot left handed. Not good because it limits gun choices I know.
My dad was right handed but shot left handed. Got along fine with levers and pumps. I'm right handed and shoot pool left handed, but left handed pool sticks are chiep.

Thats funny. I thought I was the only right handed person that shot pool left handed. I also use an open faced fishing reel left handed. Dale

[Graybeard]

It's pretty much a physical impossibility to line up the left eye, front and rear sights and target all with the rifle on the right shoulder in a half way normal manner. The ONLY way to make that happen is for him to be in a grossly contorted position to get that left eye lined up where the right eye would normally be.

You should watch his posture when shooting. My cousin's son used to do this and it was extremely obvious is you watched him shoot. He leaned his head over to the point his left eye was almost on top of his right the head was twisted so much.

If you teach him to hold the head upright with right cheek welded to stock in proper form he cannot see both sights and target with the wrong eye it's just a physical impossibility. What is likely happening is he is just failing to align the sights on target. The specific hows and whys I guess I can't say cuz I just dunno.

I am right handed and left eye dominant and have always and will always shoot from the right shoulder. With rifles and handguns I close my left eye to shoot whether iron sights or scope it's just the way I learned to do it. I tried that with shotgun but just wasn't ever able to learn to shoot that way. I tried shooting the shotgun left handed and there is no way I could master that. I Just bucked up, accepted that my sight picture would always be different than the rest of the world's and learned to do it. It took a lot of thousands of rounds fired but eventually I learned to wingshoot with both eyes open off my right shoulder. Most times I do quite well and have run 100 straight at skeet plenty of times but some days things just don't seem to click and I'll drop down into the 80s but day in and day out I average over 90% on skeet even now using both the .410 and 28 gauge which are the only guns I shoot anymore as my right shoulder can't take the recoil anymore. Just too many hundreds of thousands of heavy rounds fired down range over the years that have pounded that shoulder to the point it needs surgery in the worst way but it ain't gonna get it.

[bilmac]

I'm a firm believer in the just let em have fun idea. My boy is trying hard to teach his kids to shoot, too hard, you know this hand here no back a little , turn a little bit more, new squeeze, hold your breath, watch where you point that muzzle. Poor kid. The grandson and I snuck out in the garage the other day with a daisy and lots of BBs. I just watched him shoot, and only offered a little advice very spareingly. At first his form was awful, but in a very short time it improved dramatically, and I really had little to do with it, he just picked it up himself. Still lots of things to learn, but the most important thing he learned was that he likes to shoot.

I have a grown up niece that visited. We were going by a range so I stopped and just let her burn bullets in my blackhawk. When we left she was thrilled. That was fun she said, I never liked to shoot when my dad was trying to teach me. Patience dads teach them to have fun first.   

[bluebayou]

Listening to you and sleeping on it last night I think that I was pushing him a bit.  Going to just load up the Marlin and let him blast away. 

GB, his head was tilted way over.  He was keeping both eyes open.  There is no telling how he was looking at the sights.  It was a learning experience for me.

Like I said, I think that I am just going to let him have fun like bilmac and others said.  I don't think that I am going to bother with the scope idea.  Just going to let him go to the range and be around the adults.  That seems to be most of it.  Last week he went back inside to change shirt and shoes to match what I was wearing. 

[DakotaElkSlayer]

...my 2 cents.

The first thing I would do, if you can, is try to find out which eye is really dominant.  To me, that is extremely important, especially when dealing with a youngster.  A little guy can adapt a whole lot easier now, than when he gets older.  If he is left eye dominant, I would have him shooting left handed.  Might be tough now, but he will be thanking you for not having to put vaseline on one side of his shooting glasses when he gets older.  The reason why this is so important to me, I have helped a lot of struggling new archers at my old archery club.  I would say an honest 75% of the people that had all sorts of problems were shooting right handed, but were left eye dominant.
    Wish you a lot of luck in this new adventure of yours!!!  When the frustration kicks in, take a deep breath and smile!   As you know, this is all about FUN and teaching safe gun handling.  Heck, it may take 20 trips to the range for him to start to get it right, but if he is having fun during all 20 trips, you are obviously doing it right!

Jim

[no guns here]

I spend a LOT of time on the bb and archery range with the Cub Scouts, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts and even Venture Scouts.  I see a LOT of kids coming through with the tendency to try to cock their head clear over the stock so they can use their left eye.  Sometimes I can just tell them not to do it, sometimes I have to show them, sometimes it's a true exercise in patience.  Usually I can get them to do things that their parents can't.  Same with coaching sports.  My son won't listen to me to save his life... another coach can work with him for ten minutes and solve the problem.  You CAN beat the left eye dominance thing... I spent a couple of years trying to get my daughter to shoot with her right eye but the left was just too strong.  She could break 17 on trap at 13 yo but literally couldn't shoot anything called a group with an iron sighted rifle.  She could shoot two inch groups at 50 yds with her slug gun with a scope on it too.  Then she got into JROTC and wanted to be on the shooting team.  I had my doubts as to her ability to do it I must say... This year was her first to shoot competitively.  They shoot three position air rifle.  The air rifles use the micrometer adjustable peeps (I think that's what you call  them anyway).  The first week she shot pretty bad but they have an eye blocker that swivels over in front of their non-shooting eye.  Once she learned to use that her scores went up about 30 points.  She didn't go to nationals this year but she was the number five shooter on the European JROTC chamionship team.  The top four won the Army JROTC championship as a team.  She alternated all year with the number four girl.  We shoot once in a while at a range on another base up the road a bit.  Her groups tear up mine on a regular basis with scopes.  If we shoot air rifles, she can kick my butt all day too.  With regular iron sights, I can still beat her when we shoot at targets that aren't regulation style paper but at least she shoots nice groups now.  BTW all six top shooters were girls.  Anyway... I'm bragging now.  Back to the subject.  Tape over his shooting glasses on the left side and try that for a few times.  That will force him to use the right eye.  Watch out for him to try to shoot pistols with it canted over to his left when he gets older too.  Check into a local Isaac Walton league or 4H club when he get a little bigger, they shoot competition and that will help a bunch too.


ngh

[Sourdough]

I am a shooting instructor, and work with several other shooting instructors and coaches.  We all use the methods taught to us by the NRA shooting counselors.  Therefore we have the same idea about teaching kids to shoot.  This is also the same method taught by the US Air Force.  First we determine eye dominance.  Then we start that person shooting on that side.  Eye dominance determines which side they shoot from, and if started from that side there is no bad habits to break later.  Also keeping both eyes open is a benefit for the shooter.  Closing one eye is a detriment to a person's shooting ability.  I have gone round and round with fathers that demand their kids learn to shoot with one eye closed.  That is the way they were taught and that is the only way they can comprehend shooting.  Now, that is the way we teach the kids in 4-H. The instructors and coaches at the area high schools take many of our kids and continue them in the high school shooting teams.  Some continue on to University Of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF), which is the top collegiate shooting team in the nation.  One of our young shooters Matt Emmons moved from 4-H, to one of the local high schools.  Then on to UAF, where he was ranked top collegiate shooter in the nation, then on to the Olympics.  Currently Matt is on the US Olympic Team.

My wife is left eye dominate, but her father taught her to shoot right handed.  When I started shooting with her she could not shoot for beans.  It took me a long time to teach her to shoot left handed with a rifle.  For skeet I had to get a special stock for her skeet gun that gives her room to use her left eye, and align it with the barrel while shooting right handed.

Sometimes we run into a kids that can not learn to switch focus from one eye to the other properly.  At that point we use a patch over their shooting glasses, or a card that blocks vision from that eye.  But we always teach them to keep both eyes open.

   

[DalesCarpentry]

I would you determine what eye is your dominate one. Dale

[Sourdough]

Dale, take your hand and join your thumbs and forefingers together, making a small hole to see through.  Look at a distant object, then slowly bring your hands to your face.  At one point you will move your hand to see through one eye as you bring your hand to your face.  When you have finished, you will be looking at the object with your dominate eye.

BTW:  I taught my oldest son to shoot using this method.  When he was in Marine Boot he shot expert first time to the range.  They tried to convince him to join the sniper program.  My wife taught our youngest to shoot at the age of five.  We then enrolled him in 4-H when he was old enough.  He started shooting in high school, where he consistently out shot his peers.  But we lost him to Hockey.

[bluebayou]

Dale, take your hand and join your thumbs and forefingers together, making a small hole to see through.  Look at a distant object, then slowly bring your hands to your face.  At one point you will move your hand to see through one eye as you bring your hand to your face.  When you have finished, you will be looking at the object with your dominate eye.

BTW:  I taught my oldest son to shoot using this method.  When he was in Marine Boot he shot expert first time to the range.  They tried to convince him to join the sniper program.  My wife taught our youngest to shoot at the age of five.  We then enrolled him in 4-H when he was old enough.  He started shooting in high school, where he consistently out shot his peers.  But we lost him to Hockey.

There are many methods, basically involving looking through aperature like your thumb and forefinger put together. 
An alternative is to start with BOTH eyes open looking through hole between fingers.  Then alternate closing each eye to see which one causes shift.  The one that shifts is your less dominant eye (submissive eye?)

[billy_56081]

I think the post of letting it be fun for him is very important. Balloons, Clay pigions, and even a little tannerite can add alot of fun to his shooting. But number one teach him to be safe. Also teach him good shooting form and don't start him out with bad habits. His shooting habits will be easy to teach at this age before he developes bad ones. When I Joined the army at 21 I had over 15 years behind a rifle of one type or another, I though there was nothing they could teach me about shooting, boy was I wrong.

[beemanbeme]

Dang. He's only 6.

[bilmac]

Billie
What's tannerite?

[billy_56081]

Tannerite is a couple of powders you mix together and put into a container. When struck with a bullet it give a nice bang.

[bluebayou]

Dang. He's only 6.

I know, but I really want him to like shooting.

Maybe we should just stick with fishing.  Like I said he enjoys just going to the range with us right now.

[Sourdough]

Bluebayou:  Check and see if their is a 4-H shooting program in your area.  Usually the minimum age is 10.  But it is a good way to start them out, and with others of their own age.

In the mean time take him out with you to the woods and teach him other things of interest.  Let him go hunting with you for small game, that helps pike their interest.

[no guns here]

Buddy of mine really wanted his kid to like shooting and hunting but the kid just wasn't into it.  Dad MADE him shoot 12 gauge single shot... kid really hated it after that (he was about 10).  Kid doesn't like it to this day.  Lost him due to two range sessions...  Six year old kid?   Get him a BB gun... shoot fun stuff like bottle caps, dirt clods, balloons, chunks of ice.  Anything that moves, makes noise or gives off a puff of dirt (looks like smoke to him).  Keep the sessions really SHORT!  No more than 10-15 shots at a time at first.  Make him WANT to come back for more.  Over 500 kids a year come through the different scout camps and ranges that I run and in the past three years I can only remember TWO that just weren't interested.  From the youngest Daisy to the oldest Venturer, kids LIKE to shoot.  They WANT to see how well they can shoot.  They WANT to get better.  They WANT to earn a patch, badge, award... they want a target to hang up on their wall or to take home to show mom!  Invariably when you ask the kids at the opening ceremony for each camp what they want to do the most the answer is "BB guns!" or "Bows and Arrows!".  At the end of camp the question is "What was the most fun?" and the answers are the same... 

When working with the younger kids, there are some keys.  1.  PATIENCE!  They won't do it right the first time or the third or the tenth.  You might take 20 minutes to get them to shoot 5 arrows semi-straight while you are helping them hold the bow...  2.  Don't criticize!  Always reinforce what they are doing right and how proud you are of THEM no matter how well they shoot.  3.  Short sessions.  Attention spans aren't developed and they get discouraged and tired easily.  4.  Reward them!  An ice cream cone on the way home works great.  "Hey Johnny, wanna go shoot your bb gun?  We'll shoot for a few minutes and then go to DQ on the way home!"  "Man you did great!  I don't think I did that good when I was six!"  "Last time you only hit the target twice... you had four on the paper today!  Let's take this one home and show mom, she can hang it on the fridge...  She'll be really proud of you!"

I guess I could go on but I don't want to seem like I am lecturing because I'm not.  I'm not a professional instructor, I volunteer many, many hours each year for this and have taught or am teaching all four of my kids to shoot and have found what seems to work almost every time with almost every kid.  I wish you the best of luck with your son and his shooting career.  Start him off right and it's down hill from there...


ngh