what type of shooting are you wanting to get them in? i can only talk from my experience(smallbore prone and 3-position, and air rifle). there is not a very large calling for world class marksman out there, so how is this gonna benefit their lives? are looking at it as a career for them? rob leatham and some others make some pretty decent money shooting, but i don't know of any smallbore shooters that don't also have a "real" job. another aspect of this is that there are several colleges(as of now, who knows what will happen in 20 years) that have varsity shooting teams. i recieved an athletic scholarship to shoot on a schools rifle team. so one way of looking at it is that it could be a way to help pay for college. if your child is good enough(male or female) they can make it onto the army marksmanship unit. i knew several shooters that were on the AMU. it is nice if you can get there cause then you do have a job where they pay you to shoot. they are flown all over the world and shoot in competitions.
know this though, smallbore shooting is a very expensive endeavor. i don't know how it compares to other styles of shooting but a weekend match can cost several hundred dollars. i was shooting up to 3 matches a month. you have ammo, food, gas, hotel, match fees, souvenior money, movie money on top of all the equipment costs which can easily reach $5000-$10,000. not to mention practice ammo, 4 nights a week of practice..........
it can get expensive quick, and if you have 2 kids into shooting that is twice as much $$$$.
