My 8yo (daughter) wants to shoot and im stepping her through a BB gun before a 22 to make sure she stays interested and can master some basic safety rules.

Anyway, I've discovered she is left eye dominate and I'm just not sure which way to encourage her to learn - both eyes open, stick with left eye... It's not that she can't shoot... She just looks like she is crawling over the top of the gun to get a sight picture. to me it looks very, very awkward.

I guess my question is this:  she is young and I want to push her in whatever direction will help her become as good a shooter as she can be, but since I'm not a shooting coach I don't know what that direction is - advice or resources for teaching a kid the basics would be appreciated.


ETA: might not be the best place for this thread but I wanted to get it in front of youth instructors if possible.

Left eye dominant = left handed for rifle.

Pistol on the other hand is pretty easy to shoot right by tilting your head slightly.

I'm not an instructor, that's what I was taught. (Left eye dominant )

Just heard Tom Greshm talk bout this yesterday on his radio show. He says to black out her left eye on the shooting glasses, or smear something on them like Chapstick, etc to force her non-dominant eye to take over.

If she's left eye dominant (which is somewhat more common in women as I understand it) teach her to shoot left handed.  She'll fight shooting well right handed all her life if she starts wrong now.

I'm a righty and left eye dominant.  I shoot skeet with a occluder on my left lens so my left eye doesn't take over.  If I didn't have a safe full of right handed guns I'd just learn to shoot lefty.  An occluder in skeet works fine because you really don't need depth perception to a great degree (targets are always the same, learn the right sight picture and you're good to go - mostly).  Bird hunting though is much different - binocular vision is more important, but I have to squint or close my left eye and thus loose depth perception.  It sucks.

I have the same problem . Just put a piece of scotch tape on the left lense of her shooting glasses to block her vision out of that eye.

We are fighting this with our daughter.  We used to use scotch tape on her shooting glasses.  Then noticed she was trying to look around it.   Ended up buying an eye patch one day to go under her glasses.    Works like a champ.

I had the hardest time with this as a kid.  I am left eye, right hand.  Everyone tried to make me shoot right handed, closing my left eye.  Once I made the switch to shooting rifle and bows left handed it made a world of difference.  I still shoot pistol right handed and just keep both eyes open.

I'm left eye dominant and right handed.

I just got in the habit if closing my left eye when shooting unless using a red dot optic.

I shoot right handed.

Scotch tape on left lense to make right eye focus. It will train your eyes. Do it for a hit and then take the tape off. Works well.

Eyepatch works also.

That is what they taught us in the Marines, but I was already trained to close my left eye so I didnt need to use it.

Pretty much this.  

In a isosceles stance I somehow have the front sight in front of my left eye, even though I shoot right handed.  

Let her do what works for her.  She will figure it out naturally.

Another person who is right handed but left eye dominant here.  I shoot with my right eye, and use a bow with my left.  Just blink the left eye while aiming and the right eye becomes "dominant" until you stop focusing.  It is far easier than anything else, I have tried.  When I was first learning to shoot someone tried to make me shoot left handed, I was clumsy and unable to hit squat.  Went back to shooting guns with my right eye immediately afterwords.  I don't care what other people say about how " eye trumps hand", i've been doing fine so far.  Best of luck getting her to shoot!

I wore a patch on my left eye as a "yout" to correct this.  It worked.

i'm left hand and left eye dominant. honestly i dont get why everyone is soo keen to force kids to learn righty, i have shot lefty my whole life with all manner of rifles and shotguns and never had a problem.

ok there are some bullpups that have been an issue with ejecting in my face, also when i tried the sub 2000, the one i shot likes to eject upward and to the rear at 5:50. blacked out my glasses once trying one, other than that... never a problem

learned how to shoot rifle on a boltgun, lefty, not that hard. i still shoot bolt guns lefty and i am plenty fast.

on an ar15 its stupid easy. in fact i think its faster to reload an ar15 lefty.

m1 garand is easy. and no probs with en block clips when lefty.

no probs with mini's, m1a, ect...

Akm lefty is easy,

hk rifles, havent had a problem, although the ch handle is a little awkward till you get practice,

ruger 10/22, leverguns ect... never had problem

I can shoot righty, i just squint my left eye and my right takes over, but why force a left eye dominant shooter to learn that as their default?

the whole brass hitting you thing, never been an issue, i dont know what people are bitching about. i shoot chest squared up so not an issue, never had a single piece of brass go down my shirt or hit me (well not from my own rifle anyway, had a budies brass go down my shirt though) even if i do choose to shoot weaver, I have never had an issue.


hey, dont get me wrong its yer kid, you wanna force her to shoot righty, thats on you. but its really not gonna give her any advantage in my opinion.

I honestly dont get why you would want to...

I'm left eye dominate but right handed. I shoot rifle left handed and pistol right handed. I'm also teaching my 7yr old how to shoot right now. She just graduated from the BB gun to her first 10/22.  Luckily she is right eye dominate and right handed so I cant' help you there but from my experience being "goofy" handed and making instructors look at me funny when I transition from left handed rifle to right handed pistol during drills, go with teaching her left handed rifle. The main thing is that she is comfortable, you can help encourage good habits, form, discipline, etc, but if you try to overcome what is "natural" to her it will be a lifelong uphill battle and she will get discouraged. 

I'd try her for a good, long while using her left hand if she's left eye dominant.

You can use a blinder, but for rifle, it's easier to switch hands if one eye is really dominant.

For pistol, it's just a 7 degree offset.

I'm the exact opposite. Left handed right eye.

I had no one to teach me this years ago. So I had to figure it out on my own.

Teach her to shoot with both hands.

Left handed both eyes open. Right handed squint an eye. Once she gets the fundamentals and safety down then you can teacher her
how to let her non dominate eye take control.


Trust me this will help her in the long run.