Faced the same dilema a few years back with my 8 yr old and ended up with a Remington Youth Model 7 .243. Used very mild handloads behind an 85 grn bullet to keep recoil down.Red dotscope with a 3 minute dot worked well as there was no eye relief problem and almost unlimited field of view. Soft recoil padand muffs with plugs to keep noise flinching down. She has done well with this combo.