I’m beginning to think that maybe she just freaked out the kindergarten teacher.
haha! sounds like teddy bears = actuaries
I slept in my son’s bed last night because the foster kiddo has a cough/cold and needed his inhaler throughout the night. So my son slept in the spare room.
This morning he came into the room while I was still asleep (it was a long night), kissed me on the forehead, brushed my hair out of my eyes, and told me it was “wake up time” and I had to get up so I didn’t get fired from my job for being late to work.
10 Likes
The kid has come home with daywork and homework everyday this week that involves writing:
1… 48= 40 + 8
2… 37= 30 + 7
…
40… 24 = 20 + 4
I can’t comprehend how anyone thinks this is anything but torture.
40 examples is def overkill of the drill.
What’s the difference between the two?
Guessing the first one should have been done at school.
We got our 9yo son a Swiss Army knife. Now his 6.5yo brother wants one.
Is that too young? I wouldn’t let him “play” with it or anything, which means he will likely lose interest in it. This is a new territory for me. I never had an interest in weapons until I was in college and bought an OTF switchblade on eBay (because, I mean, cool…wonder what happened to that thing).
This is the kid who is doing cub scouts. I want to encourage his interests and everything. But what can a 6yo really even do with a Swiss army knife other than mildly injure themselves?
Oh, and the reason we bought the 9yo one is because of his interest in whittling. He got a whittling knife and some protection gloves last year for his birthday, and he has developed a healthy interest in practical knife use. He also doesn’t view the knife as a “toy” although did find the little plastic magnifying glass “cute.”
1 Like
How about lethally injure themselves or someone else?
Start unscrewing things?
Open bottle tops?
Open wine bottles??
Yeah, we gave our son a knife at about that age. And yes, he poked himself in the hand with it. Nothing serious, and I doubt a lesson was learned. I’d do it again.
IMO the hesitation is likely a) is it a weapon and b) will they harm themselves or someone else with it. No, they don’t view it as a weapon, it’s more an interesting adult thing that they’ll use as a tool and no, a penknife isn’t going to do any significant damage and most likely none.
Let them explore their interests, give them the knife and some balsa wood or something. Let them screw around with it until they get bored and it goes into the box with all the other stuff.
Better than a video game IMO.
3 Likes
Not necessarily. My BIL has his kids driving tractors and stuff…I’m not sure how old they are…in the 6-12 yo range. Part of the reason that works is that BIL is able to properly instruct/train them on how to do that stuff safely. It kind of depends a lot on if you think your son is knowledgeable/mature enough to handle the responsibility. I know some people will go all :ohnoes: on a kid handling a knife. I think the sooner you can teach them responsibility, the better…but the key is that they need to be taught responsibility. JMO.
I read this as “Orange Theory Fitness switchblade”…now that’s an interesting work out routine.
1 Like
And to expand on this, I’m taking a bunch of early 20yo students winter camping this weekend and they’re exactly the same as your 6yo. They’re coordinating bringing saws and axes to chop down trees and split wood. I had to tell them that a) we’re not cutting down trees on gov’t property and b) the wood that I’m bringing is already split. Sorry.
I also had to pull in the reigns on the guy who asked if there are any rivers or lakes nearby. I advised them that the ice wouldn’t be safe for ice fishing because we’ve got some warm days coming. Turns out they don’t want to go ice fishing, they want to go for a polar dip. Aaaaand, that’s also a no for me. Bad time of year, stuff is melting and the rivers are running fast enough to drown people (we get people drowning around here at this time of year pretty regularly. There’s a kid missing right now that they’ll likely find in the spring).
1 Like
And don’t worry folks, I have the dad jokes ready to roll. One kid is bringing a backpacking 20 gauge that I’m going to refer to as ‘his girlfriend’s gun’. Other favourites include "That’s a GREAT shot! What were you aiming at?'.
2 Likes
I agree that it’s very unlikely your kid will kill someone with a knife, even if they try.
Some notes:
When I was around 11, I can remember dramatically threatening myself with a kitchen knife, holding it to my neck or whatever.
I played pretend with my karate weapons in middle school, which included some sharp kamas. It was fun.
A few years later, a guy in my same class broke into someone’s house and threatened someone with his sharp kamas.
The boy scouts I know who bend over backwards insisting that knives, fire, guns are definitely not toys still fetishize them to an annoying degree.
This is all to say you can’t entirely control what your child will do with a weapon. You can have an idea of his character, but it can change, or it might not match reality.
That said, I still think it’s fine, because knives are way way way less dangerous than guns.
Obligatory Simpsons meme:
1 Like
Obligatory Simpsons video:
3 Likes
Additional obligatory Simpson’s meme (couldn’t find a video clip)
Ooh, a switchblade! I see the switch, but where’s the blade? D’oh!
1 Like
Also, imo, teaching your child “this is not a toy” will not stop them from using it as a tool to commit murder or suicide.
