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A pocketknife is mainly a tool, not really intended as a weapon for self defense. If the neighborhood is bad enough that a child needs a weapon, I'd be reconsidering where I live.
This.
There are other skills you can teach your children about protecting themselves.
Pocketknives are handy for some things, but not the best tool for the situation you described.
Actually, he paid me to buy it for him with money he's earned. My boys have had knives since they were around 9 y/o. There's a hunting knife in my top drawer, which my 13 y/o also purchased, that I'm holding on to for a while longer. He doesn't need it, and I'd rather it not be a showpiece for him at this age.
Depends. If my child had to go places by himself, for instance, school,or hang out with friends, and the neighborhood was bad, then yes I would. I can't shelter him just because the neighborhood is bad.
You are going to have your child defend himself with a pocket knife in a bad neighborhood??!!??
Yes. Show me you can handle it properly, safely then you can have it. Agre is irrelevant except insofar as s/he is capable of doing the showing of responsibility.
I carried a knife as a young teen but it was a farming community and I think just about everyone did... I still carry a nice knife today, with a glass breaker tip and a strap cuttter. I'd be afraid to give one to my daughter when she's older since I've heard that most schools has a zero tolerance policy.
My dad grew up in Minneapolis - he says when he was a teen (13 or so) he and his friends would board the City bus, with their rifles to catch the line out to the rural areas to shoot birds and target shoot.
Yes. Show me you can handle it properly, safely then you can have it. Agre is irrelevant except insofar as s/he is capable of doing the showing of responsibility.
This. I have no problem with a child having a pocketknife. My son is eight and we're thinking of getting him one for Christmas.
Both sons were given knives, and I do not remember how old they were when they were given the first one. I do remember that I did not think the younger one was ready. he would leave the knives anywhere, and I got in the habit of dropping them in my purse when I found them.
It created an interesting result when I tried to get on an airplane once --- before small folding knives were banned. I forgot the knives were there. When my purse was searched after it went through the X-ray machine
there were about half a dozen there. I got funny looks from the security folks but was sent on my way to the plane!
I can see how there are different considerations now in terms of schools. No adult gave me a knife when I was little - that I can recall anyway. However, when I was 7ish I found a Swiss Army knife and had it well into adulthood. I carried that thing around a lot so I'm thinking my parents must have seen it. Maybe it's more common for kids to find knives in rural or farming areas - my best friend did, too - but my point is that even young kids can find, or even buy, their own pocket knives. If I had kids, I doubt I'd give them a knife but I doubt I'd take a pocket knife away from them if they found one or bought one with their own money. Of course, if it was a destructive or violent kid, or one without the sense to leave it at home during school, then that's a different story.
Yes, age 6. It is a tool, not a knife. That being said, sadly, I suppose it needs to stay at home, rather than in a pocket. I have no doubt, in our paranoid society, a child with a pocketknife would be suspended from school, and probably get a juvenile criminal record.
Yes, but my son knows not to bring it to school. Got it when he was 10 now 16.
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