Searching your son's room for weapons

15 years ago in the area we live in there was a spate of knife crimes. My son was a collector of swords I.e ornamental for display. My husband removed all of them and a very vicious looking blade which may son said was for display purposes only. 2 weeks later one of his friends stabbed a young man whose oniy crime was was living in a different post code. The friend who stabbed him had only ‘ornamental swords’ like my son. Now 15 years later my son has admitted he would have been involved if we hadn’t removed his display knives. My advise is as a parent search their rooms takes 10 mins better than a young man losing their lives

Without wanting to sound complacent (and I think people should be careful not to assume their sons are “not like that,”) I do think there are warning signs before you get to the point of knife violence.

There are going to be clues in the sort of company they keep, in their behaviour. Children do get co-opted into this but it doesn’t go from 0 to 70 overnight.

Was there not a time when most young boys would own a knife?

I was thinking the same thing.

I'd wager the majority of parents who'd be motivated to do this, would be the ones who are involved in their kids' lives raise them nicely and are bothered enough to do it in the first place.

I don't know about you @DeeplyMovingExperience, but we have several very large, sharp knives in the kitchen that are used for cooking/cutting bread - which I assume is the same for most, if not all households across the UK - do you expect people to never have knives in the home? Because that seems unrealistic

Knives aren't the (only) problem - misogynistic people are. Teach your sons (and all kids) to respect girls/women/teachers/human beings

Kids who are intent on causing harm to others, will do so by any means necessary

We need to teach them to be better

I know my 18 year old son has a knife in his room. I was there when he bought it a year or so ago.
It is for wood whittling and general use outdoors.
He is a young leader at Scouts, currently helping to teach a load of 8-10 year olds how to 'cook', he goes religiously every week and gives his time up so other young people get the opportunities he did.
Perhaps rather than doing room inspections it is a good idea to know what your teens are doing, who they are doing it with and generally checking in making sure they don't feel the need for 'protection'.

Yep - once they get hooked into gangs, enabling them to leave would appear to take an act of God. Essentially they are groomed. I was reflecting the other day on when I read Oliver Twist (I am going to watch it soon) and though “Plus Ça Change…•

I have 2 teenage boys at home (15 & 18) was just about to comment the same thing.

My some posters are smug. I live in a rural county, plenty of work, high house prices and good schools. According to an SW friend, there is a big county lines problem now in the area. I used to work in a FE College just outside London. Boys would choose to attend rather than go to their inner city colleges, their ‘friends’ from home would get the train and hang around waiting for them. It was hard for them to extricate themselves from gangs.

Surely every parent?Wtf op?
What kind of household do you live in?
Doesn’t seem to be normal?

Exactly this.

I think you would have to suspect your child is involved in this kind of thing.

And I suspect a lot of these boys are from completely chaotic home lives so I doubt their parents (most likely ‘parent’) would give a damn or care enough to check.

Or their parent / carer / grandparent is being terrorised by them.

I teach year 6. When talking about device use, many of them have free access to devices in their bedrooms. Who knows what they’re watching or who they’re talking to and they’re 11. I think it’s healthy to keep an open mind.

That’s so bad.

One suspects most of the boys who go around stabbing people do not have mothers on Mumsnet...

Most of the children who have these horrendous weapons come from very dysfunctional homes- obviously there will be exceptions but as a general rule they’re not going to be found amongst the parents who are clicking on this thread. The murderers of Mason Rist and Max Dixon show exactly what kind of backgrounds these kinds of kids come from. Have a google. No one was going to be checking bedrooms in their cases. One of the adults involved with the kids actually drove them to the site of the murders (and got nearly 50 years for it despite never getting out of the car, which is a good deterrent for anyone thinking of doing anything like that). Another two burnt the clothes the kids were wearing that night. It’s completely insidious.

If I suspected my son was into this kind of thing, I'd go hunting - but its not going to stop the problem.

Every kitchen has a knife.

Kids carry knives for protection, they live in an environment where that is common place, and feel that not carrying is worse than carrying. They also occupy spaces in which lots of them are brutalised, see violence on a regular basis and are connected to networks that wouldn't hesitate to stab someone and in which retribution is rife. Lone killers are still rare, most kids dont just randomly got out and murder someone even if they have watched a few online videos. Poverty and insecurity, together with criminal networks create a toxic environment in which violence becomes common place. Gangs have over the last decade or so have focused on using younger and younger kids because they get shorter sentences. Most parents whose kids are around knives know it but are often powerless to stop it. hmiprobation.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/our-research/evidence-base-youth-justice/specific-sub-groups/children-involved-in-urban-street-gangs/.

But again - misogynistic crap and toxic masculinity affects everyone and is more classless. So yes rich middle class boys are just as likely to be impacted as poor ones. MN parents shouldnt be too complacent or assume that just because they think their boys are nice, that they really are. No they might not stab someone but that doesnt mean they have a healthy attitude to women or masculinity.

Erm, most kitchens have knives…..

If you seriously thought someone who lived in your home was hiding a weapon in their bedroom it sounds dangerous for someone untrained to do the search and the people to do it would surely be the police not a parent.

No, I am absolutely not going to do that, OP.
Quite aside from the fact my boys are parented property, I saw one of them pick up a snail from the street and put it in the garden 'so no one steps on it!' the other day - I'm pretty confident he's not going to stab anyone.

That's not the right question because most people of any age do not want to kill someone. Premeditated murder amongst all ages is a very small number of the total. Most people, including youngsters, kill because the circumstances present themselves. A fistfight or serious falling out becomes something different when one or both have a weapon or can find a weapon. It might be a rock or a piece of pipe on the ground - but if you are carrying a knife, no matter what you reason was when you put it in your pocket, that fight becomes a knife fight. Most murders did not set out to murder - they may or may not be "nice people" (believe it or not, many are really nice people), but they are people who get caught in something that spirals out of control and are largely swept away. They don't think "I will knife that person", the knife is suddenly in their hand and it's a thoughtless act of a split second. Anyone can become a killer - it is as much, if not more, about context and circumstances than intent.