I was at the club and saw several right about the same time, so I took out my frustrations on the foam…
But at least I was OUTSIDE.
They may like the trad bow over the compound and stick with it.
You learn more about the basics with stick and string. I would never recommend starting with a cross bow, but that's only my opinion.
If you buy a kid a decent recurve or long bow at an appropriate weight, they can shoot the same bow for many, many years. My youngest started with a Black Rhino model 48 “light“ which he shot from the age of five until he was 11. His form is better than most 50 year old men have been shooting for 30 years. When he shoots a bow that is substantially lighter than he can handle, his arrows may fall short of the target, but they all fall on the same line. And I mean like a 4” chalk line on a baseball field.
And the great thing about a stick bow is that the “correct” draw length is wherever the kid finds a strong and comfortable anchor point.
On the other hand…
A peep sight and a front pin enforce and reinforce ONE consistent anchor, every single time. Which is pretty much the key to consistent accuracy when shooting without sights, And those skills transfer very readily to shooting Stickbow later on.
If you hop over to the leather wall, you may be able to find a bow in a good size for a kid if you check with (by handle) Okaw (Black Rhino), Nemah (R.K. Korte) or Mike Mecredy (Maddog archery).
There are also plenty of perfectly satisfactory imported bows if you check out Lancaster or Hitman archery (nice, local guy who got hammered by Covid and could use the business) and if you get a bit larger riser, you can probably go nice and light with that first set of limbs and upgrade to something a bit heftier later on.
I know a couple of guys who switched from compounds and shoot much better than most “Trad” shooters ever get to be. And it didn’t take very long.
So I don’t think compounds are detrimental to learning how to shoot a bow well, but the most important thing (IMO) is that the kid falls in love with it.
If a kid’s mentor is wrapped up in itty-bitty group sizes, the kid is going to be unhappy if they cannot drill every shot into the center of the bull’s-eye at a known distance every time.
If the mentor has a much more relaxed approach to it and offers the kid targets such as balloons or tennis balls or whatever size object the kid has an easy enough time hitting from various , unspecified distances…. that kid is going to have a blast just putting a shot into the target.
But I can guaran-gol-damn-tee ya that the number one most important factor in teaching a kid to shoot is to figure out what turns them on and let them roll with it.
I got my boys started with Stickbows when they were young enough to still think that I was cool…. and they shoot very well. My older son will launch arrows with me from 80 yards just to watch them fly. Yes, 80 yards with No Sights .
If you are obsessed with shooting itty-bitty groups at known ranges, then you need to get the kid a compound so that they can keep up.
If it’s more important to you to be able to hit a target of opportunity at whatever distance is offered, then I would keep the kid focused on a sightless approach to it. If they see you succeeding wildly where they struggle, they will be inclined to quitting. If you put them on a level playing field with yourself, there is less opportunity for them to declare themselves disasters, and they are that much more likely to stay with it.
Then I moved over to the 40-yard shooting line and put three out of five onto the line to hit the X ring if I had just gotten the elevation exactly right. The other two would kill an Elk (8-ring), but probably not a deer unless I got lucky.
The truth is that shooting without sights is really not all that difficult. If the kid enjoys it that way, foster it!
