My son just finished his 4th year of shotgun hunting for deer and he is 11. He has been shooting competitively for 3 years and has taken the gun safety class as well as the hunter safety class. He went with me for a year without a gun and then started the next season with an empty gun and went through the motions of waiting and switching the safety off and then pulling the trigger. We did this for the first two weeks and had 3 or 4 encounters where the deer were in range and he did everything right. The first day he had a loaded gun he killed a doe and a 5 point during the same hunt. Since he has killed 3 other deer and is doing very well. I think that it is up to the parent who sees the child on a daily basis and knows how mature they are.