10 Good Reasons to Teach Your Kid Archery

Every parent understands the benefits of structure and discipline. Therefore, finding different outlets that teach kids these important life skills are of great benefit. Thanks to sports like archery, kids learn the discipline necessary to succeed in the sport. Whether they are just starting out with a fiberglass bow or have the best youth compound bow, the intrinsic skills to excel at archery help them excel at other pursuits.

Here are _ different reasons that you should teach your child archery:

• Discipline
• Persistence
• Hand-Eye Coordination
• Family Bonding
• Enjoyment
• Skill Development
• Competition
• Hunting
• Understanding Value
• Teaching

Discipline

There is an old saying that discipline is doing what you don’t want to do when you don’t want to do it. In the case of archery, it should never be a punishment but instead discipline is about understanding where your child’s skill level is and helping them develop the archery fundamentals for every shot. Many children initially just want to shoot at targets, but the reality is archery is so much more than that. Discipline means there is a progression from a short distance with a balloon to longer distances.

Discipline is also developed through practice and repetition. No one is a great archer on their first shot. It takes lots of practice to hit a target. Then when stepping up to moving targets, more practice is required. Developing discipline in archery means young folks will understand how a progression works and will apply this mindset to other pursuits like academics and other sports.

Persistence

Rebounding from disappointment is very important in life. Everyone suffers disappointments and when starting out in archery, there will be lots of frustration. It’s not fun to miss a target. The best way to develop persistence in your child is to keep them on a process driven mindset. This allows them to understand how they made mistakes and fix those mistakes on the next shot.

Persistence is very important to develop. Having kids understand that disappointments are something to learn from makes them stronger for stuff that’s tougher to get over than missing a shot in archery.

Hand-Eye Coordination

Having great hand-eye coordination serves people well in all types of pursuits. If your child is someone who has an affinity for sports, archery is very helpful in this regard. Having the ability to aim and simultaneously draw the bow while hitting the target only serves to improve the quick twitch muscle fibers. The other benefit is cognitive – kids will be able to move better in different areas. They will understand how their body reacts to different stimuli.

The biggest is in terms of motor skills and coordination. There are several muscles involved with shooting an arrow. The muscles in the upper back do most of the action but providing a base with the legs is key. The diaphragm works with the breathing, and all happens thanks to good hand-eye coordination.

Family Bonding

The tradition of parents and their kids taking up mutually enjoyed sporting endeavors is as old as time. Archery is no different. A parent’s passion is often given to their child. Being passionate about something is infectious. For parents, it is good to show children the benefits of being passionate about something and developing skills.

The key to making it a bonding experience is staying positive. Positive reinforcement helps kids stay in love with the sport. It is the glue that helps folks bond. Being positive and celebrating the success your child has is the easiest way to keep them encouraged and sticking with the sport while passing it down to their kids.

Enjoyment

There is no reason to do things if it is not fun to engage in the activity. Archery is no different. This sport can be a lot of fun. The key to the fun is celebrating the success of a child when shooting. This reinforces the enjoyment. Use different types of targets. For example, with new archers, balloons are great targets. Create some surprises by filling them with water. The explosion when the arrow pierces the balloon is always enjoyed.

Other things that are fun are archery competitions. Getting together with friends is a great way to spend time. The bonding is a lot of fun. These good memories are why archery is a great thing for kids and goes back to the bonding mentioned earlier.

Skill Development

Everyone should have something they are good at, and archery can certainly be one of those things. The best thing about archery is there are several smaller skills that go into developing the discipline. Hand-eye coordination, breath control, aiming – these are just several things that help kids develop skills.

As skills are developed, this crosses into other disciplines. Kids will understand how to traverse a learning curve because they have already done so in archery. Whether it is the classroom or athletics, skill development is assisted greatly with archery.

Competition

Few things invigorate the spirit like competition. Teaching wins and losses as the ultimate outcome devalues competition, though. Archery competitions are about showcasing skill development and rating your ability against that of fellow archers. These competitions are great ways to socialize with other folks while giving kids the ability to showcase their skills in front of others. The value provided by competition helps kids in other endeavors as well.

Hunting

This is an obvious benefit of archery. Hunting requires a lot of skill and for kids who are interesting in hunting, learning archery is a must. Bow hunting requires understanding of game along with how to be patient and wait for the right shot. The skill in hitting a moving target is something many archers take a long time to master. Hunting is the ultimate test of this skill. Having a kid learn how to bow hunt is a great way of showing them their progress within the sport.

Understanding Value

In the way that parents use bank accounts to teach the value of the dollar, archery can work the same way. Bows can be expensive, as are arrows. When an arrow is lost, so is the shot. Bullets are small and portable, but arrows aren’t. In the way that a gun can reload, a bow is dissimilar. To get the next arrow takes time, and the shot will not be there the way it would be if a person was using a rifle.

Teaching

It is said that the best way to learn a skill is for someone to teach the skill to others. If your kid is good at archery, get them in a program where they are teaching archery to other kids. This passing of tradition is a great way for kids to gain a greater appreciation for archery. When they work with someone new to the sport and that person experiences success, it is often more rewarding than if they experienced success on their own.

Conclusion

There are many reasons to teach kids archery besides the ones listed above. Archery is a lifetime sport, and whether you are 6 or 60, there are many ways to challenge yourself to get better. Using archery as a way to bond with your child is a great way to create a lifetime supply of great memories.