Searching your son's room for weapons

[DeeplyMovingExperience]

In light of yet another shocking headline about boys/young men rampaging with knives and machetes causing terrible injuries -

I guess that most of these boys/men live at home (due to their ages), so where are they keeping these terrible weapons?

Surely every parent should be searching their son's rooms or more widely their whole homes?

I always think this about MN. Every single mum of boys on this site has a “lovely, gentle son”. So who are the parents of the little shits terrorising these lovely, gentle boys? Who are the parents of the boys making lewd comments to girls (or even female teachers) in secondary schools? Who are the boys abusing the girls (verbally, or worse) who reject them?

I’m a mum of a boy and a girl and, even though DS is still young, I am fully aware that there are lessons he must learn. I can see when he makes comments that are less than kind and can imagine he would do the same (and probably more) if I wasn’t around to check his behaviour. And no, my son isn’t a raving little shit 24/7; he is a perfectly normal child with a very boring, “ordinary” upbringing and, as far as I’m aware, has faced no significant trauma. Other parents might describe him as “lovely”, which he truly is most of the time. But I also know that he is imperfect and wish other parents would stop thinking that their children are. This is how we end up with entitled men (or teenage boys) who think they can get away with anything - because everyone has shown them that they can.

Lots of boys carry knives, often for protection.

Yes you can buy knives and machetes on the internet.

Machetes on Amazon https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=machete&crid=1YM3FA6V040PH&sprefix=machete%2Caps%2C207&ref=nb_sb_ss_mvt-t1-ranker_1_7

OK a lot of them are fancy dress / Halloween costume accessories, but in and among are bladed items.

Have you heard of Amazon lockers? Delivery to a friend or to a shop?

@GretchenWienersHair

You ask "who are these parents?"

Well I think it's unlikely they are on what's is a predominantly parents forum. They are probably unlikely to engage in these conversations.

GretchenWienersHair

I both agree and disagree with you.

There are posts on MN from women who are concerned about their son's behaviour and the things they say. Posts from parents whose sons are looking up manosphere stuff on the Internet and whatever else.

So I disagree that all parents on here think their son is 'gentle' or perfect.

And there are also lots of posts from parents asking how they can raise their sons to avoid this behaviour in the future. So there are a lot of women who are well aware that their son could become one of these boys/men.

There are also parents who are in complete denial about their son's behaviour because they have Internalised ideas about boys themselves and think what their son is doing is harmless or no different to what all other boys are doing.

In that respect, it's no different to posts where women post about their partners/husbands and ask "Why do men..?" and then go on to describe lazy, selfish behaviours. The responses are almost evenly split between women saying my partner isn't like that and women who reassure the OP that most men are like that and it's just the way they are etc.

My son is 27 and I raised him largely as a single parent. We've had conversations, we've discussed things and I've never felt the need to search his room for weapons or even been tempted to. Of course he was/is imperfect and vulnerable to outside influences - everyone is. But I was aware of that and that's why I raised him as I did.

Eg he came home from school one day and told me there had been a discussion between male and female students at school where the general consensus had been that, if a girl is drunk and gets raped, she is "at least 50% responsible." He said it felt wrong and he knew it was wrong but wasn't able to articulate to them why because they firmly beleived it. So we discussed it until he was equipped with the reasoning and went back the following day and explained it to them. The general consensus following that was that girls held 0% responsibility for being raped under amy circumstances.

So, we've talked, I've educated him, I've been an active and involved parent. Many of the boys who go on to behave in these ways will have shown red flags that were ignored or not recognised. They'll have received direct and indirect messaging from home about what it means to be a man. The adult men in their lives and the behaviour accepted by the women in their lives. They won't have been 'nurtured' because of beliefs about men and boys. They will be vulnerable in some way and susceptible to online influences in the way that anyone who is radicalised in some way is.

So no, I never searched his room for weapons and I don't think I was remiss in not doing so. And other parents will have raised their sons similalrly. Nor all boys are raised to be arrogant and 'entitled'.

I went to the pub for an hour after work last night.

I was in the beer garden where there were a couple of families having a drink with their primary aged children. The families were discussing having watched Adolesence. Including the children. I couldn't hear the adults because they were talking quietly but the children were very loud and they were saying how good it was and didn't have any concept of it being disturbing in any way.

One of them said the last episode was 'a bit sad'. I've not seen it but, from what I've read, it's not suitable for primary aged childen. I work with families and children and the children will quite often tell me about things they've seen online. I follow safeguarding procedures of course but they're too young to understand the implications of what they see online. In many cases, their parents allow them unfettered access to the Internet or expose them to things themselves.

In Adolescence, the kid used a knife from the family kitchen

I feel quite insulated from this in my rural bubble. That said there’s an awful lot of weapons around. Chainsaw , axe, hatchet wood chopping, air gun ( dispatches rats) proper chef knives including a meat cleaver. I couldn’t really imagine DS picking one up in anger though. We are very hot on safety. Also goes to army cadets which again is all about safety and self discipline. I’ve never heard of any knives/ knife crime at his school.

I do read stuff like this though and wonder how well you know your child and his influences.

I would if I was suspicious

That depends on whether it's a blanket "not my child" or parents are involved, aware and see little opportunity that their son is on this kind of path.

I would be astonished if my son had even a table knife turn up while I raid his room for used socks because he's dyspraxic and hates using any kind of knife to the extent of still using plastic ikea knives for dinner.

He doesn't have parcels.

He doesn't have any drive to go out and about unsupervised.

There's been no changes of mood or character to indicate getting drawn into social situations (in person or online) that he shouldn't.

He uses the computer in a public room and the algorithms are very much focused on science, engineering and maths. His access to the internet has been managed and supervised carefully from the start. We discuss boundaries, why they're there and what to do if you come across inappropriate content online, especially if you've done something daft.

He's not socially motivated and prefers quiet, studious people. He favours alone time at home and isn't swayed easily by peer pressure.

He has physical hobbies, sporting and creative that he does throughout the week.

He's grown up in a stable, respectful home with positive role models. He's always had parental time avaliable to him.

So at this point in time, I don't see any motivations or opportunities for him to go down this kind of path in life. It's a path I've been aware of for a long time due to safeguarding training and seeing issues flagging up in a small town school of varied catchments. I've worked in inner cities, in leafy suburbs. Leafy suburbs tend to be the worst for denial, but all areas have their problems. These issues have always existed in some form or another, but the last 15 years have de-localised them.

I'm not in a sudden moral panic because of a TV drama, I've been aware of these issues for over a decade and have parented accordingly. For my son, the greater weak spot would be online content due to his autistic social skills/ drive rather than in-person contacts. I can't say never, but I don't see evidence that he is that way inclined, and statistically it is a minority that go that way. It's not a male default; also females get tangled up in these cultures and behaviours too so it's a general parenting concern.

So sometimes when parents feel that their son isn't being drawn into these cultures, it's not a self-protective denial, it's through awareness and not detecting signs of it. MN parents are more likely to follow current affairs, be aware of safeguarding issues and be pro-active parents than average.

I had another female student threaten me with a knife when I was at high school. Should parents be searching their daughters’ rooms too?

I grew up in an area where the kind of kids involved in this sort of lifestyle and knife crime had parents who were just as violent and narrow minded as they were. They would certainly not search their rooms or even think about that and were either not around or too busy trying to be their friend and had zero boundaries. The friends and culture around them endorsed their mindset and behaviour eg drill music.

Adolescence didn’t resonate with me at all.

How very sexist!
Girls are also machete and knife carriers/users. Not so much, but becoming more common.

No, he used a knife supplied by his friend Ryan

Well presumably most people have kitchen knives readily available in their houses which could kill or cause serious injury.

Yeah because assuming they’re murderers and rooting through their private stuff is really going to help teenage boys feel less alienated, isn’t it?

I don't normally check my son's room as he is 18 and I trust him. However, I did discover that he had created a new bioweapon by leaving a half drunk hot chocolate in a travel cup. He was a bit put out that I threw it out but I swear he has created a malevolent life form that will soon have designs on world domination.