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JimT

My daughter is coming up on 4 years old and I've already been thinking about finding training classes for her. Not yet, but when she is ready. First and foremost for her safety should she ever accidentally come across a firearm. Second, I want her to know how to properly use them and have plenty of practice so in that rare event that she ever NEEDS to use it (like above) then she will be better prepared.

Where I live we can't just go out in the backyard and shoot. First it's not allowed in this area and second the properties are all too close together so there wouldn't be any "safe" direction.

As for teaching a 4 year old. Well, I don't really care what age she is. What matters most is her level of maturity and she's not there yet. But, one day she will be and I want to be prepared for that day. My wife and I already try to guide her in proper handling when she plays with toys that resemble firearms, though it's mainly just to get her familiar with the concepts and ideas. Hopefully that conditioning pays off when the time comes for real instruction. Kinda like how we teach kids at the earliest ages that red means stop, green means go, even though they won't really need to apply that concept until much later. It's just developing the patterns and the pattern recognition so it becomes second nature for the brain.

(*** No, she doesn't have any "toy guns", not even water pistols yet, but you might be surprised at how many innocent and completely unrelated toy ideas end up resembling a firearm in shape and function. And you might also be surprised, as I was, by how naturally kids figure out how to hold it like a real firearm. For my wife and I that toy ended up being a handheld fireworks light projector.)