Things just arent the same anymore....

When I was a kid there were no video games or even video. Electronic toys were not even a thought yet. We lived on a ranch and you had to entertain yourself with much more simple things. That was not to hard because work took most of our time anyway. Work is something that many kids now a days are not familiar with. Gadgets do most of the work and thus are a big part of the play. However every kid is different maybe knives and the outdoors is not his thing. However it may be someday. Interests change as one grows up.
 
Depends a lot on environment, if kids are indoors mostly and play with technology then that's what it will be
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Don't despair! I'm older than most of you (half century) but I don't think age is so crucial actually. The outdoors just pulls some people whatever their situation, some kids will always want to get outdoors and dream and act, it never leaves you-thankfully.
In my up-bringing there wasn't a lot of knife carrying at all, tools knocked about a bit yes but not really knives. I FOUND some old knives in the cellar, pocket knives rusty and interesting and that's where it all started. Cleaned them up and started to dream I was some kind of explorer. Knife-carriers are individualists,eccentrics even and long may it be so. It all depends on the personna of the kid.
 
Some people just have a higher sheeple quota than others. This might change given time or it might not, depending on a lot of things. I know what you're feeling though. It sucks when someone can't relate to you and sheep-dog-ness. Kids are so busy with fake combat in their games/movies that they overlook the fact that it is possible to be a sheep dog in real life...it's probably perceived by them as being something artificial (iow: combat only exists in movies/games). Why prepare for survival situations/war when you can just sit down and instantly get your fix for that with the press of some buttons? In real life its tougher. It takes work, time, and patience. The thing they don't have the wisdom to to realize is that it's much more rewarding to steadily bear real fruit and progress in the domain of reality. Kids play video games because it gives them a temporary, but usually great purpose. What they realize as they mature, assuming they are raised well, is that reality holds great purpose for them, which is all the more noble and honorable a purpose because it exists in reality and not virtual reality.

Wow. This turned out to be a long post. I can be pretty analytical hehe.
 
Just another note, since I bought that same knife. My idea is to have a future father-son project using that knife. Staining the handle, maybe re-shaping it. Sharpening the knife. Drilling a lanyard hole. Maybe carving something together with it.

Just watching a knife lay there on the table... naturally that's not as much fun as computer games.
 
Kids these days!! I swear!

Nah, my kids and my nieces and nephews are all excited when they turn 8, which is our extended family's standard age for getting a knife. My dad has given some, I have given some, and my BIL has given one. After the last one, my sister asked BIL to take her to the shop to get a replacement for her VIC Classic, which had fallen apart.

The nephew who just got his first knife plays video games incessantly, yet has not put down his knife at all since he got it, except for going to school. Most of the rest of them are the same.

All depends on how you are raised, and what you think is important, even if you're just a kid.
 
camp4fun said:
Some people just have a higher sheeple quota than others. This might change given time or it might not, depending on a lot of things. I know what you're feeling though. It sucks when someone can't relate to you and sheep-dog-ness. Kids are so busy with fake combat in their games/movies that they overlook the fact that it is possible to be a sheep dog in real life...it's probably perceived by them as being something artificial (iow: combat only exists in movies/games). Why prepare for survival situations/war when you can just sit down and instantly get your fix for that with the press of some buttons? In real life its tougher. It takes work, time, and patience. The thing they don't have the wisdom to to realize is that it's much more rewarding to steadily bear real fruit and progress in the domain of reality. Kids play video games because it gives them a temporary, but usually great purpose. What they realize as they mature, assuming they are raised well, is that reality holds great purpose for them, which is all the more noble and honorable a purpose because it exists in reality and not virtual reality.

Wow. This turned out to be a long post. I can be pretty analytical hehe.
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You make it all sound so gloomy. Kids play video games because they're fun. Play in the virtual world is no more or less noble or honorable than playing with knives. You have conversations in the virtual world. Does that make you a sheeple? (Jeezeus, I hate that self righteous, condescending term!)
 
Almost the exact same story with both of my nephews...when they were younger also.

They are now 20 & 25...
After not seeing them both for a few years, I was able to spend the X-mas holiday's with them both, all they did the entire week was play a game on their laptops...worthless!
I won't be planning to see either one of them any time soon.
 
My parents have a friend that has two teenage girls and an 8 year old little boy. Her husband was killed in a car accident when the 8 year old boy was a baby. My parents have been helping her and the kids out, babysitting and things. My parents, myself and my brother have grown attached to the little guy. He has no male figures in his life, and everything he knows about being a boy, we've taught him. I taught him how to ride a bike. I'm 27, and I am not a father, but damn was that a proud moment for me.

The kid lives with his mother, who has gone buck wild since the father passed, and two uncontrollable, ditzy, materialistic, bratty teenage girls. The guy doesn't get much attention, and he's around three screaming unstable females every day.

He loves coming over here and wrestling around with us guys. We shoot bb guns with him, ride bikes etc. Guy stuff.

For Christmas last year, my dad went out and got him a Victorinox Super Tinker, thinking he was ready for something like that. It was a beauty. I had a fit over it, and joked about it a little. "THANKS DAD!" and put it in my pocket.

Well....they came to the house to do the gift exchange thing. The teenage girls we're rolling their eyes and wishing to hell they were at the mall or somewhere else. Dad gave the little guy the Super Tinker, and he did about the same thing as the boy in the original post. He really didn't give it a second look. Dad stood there and explained to him....like he did to his boys... about a knife being a tool, to take care of it, and always be careful and responsible with it. Never use it as a weapon to hurt someone. Never to take it to school. He stuck it in his pocket, and went about playing his Nintendo DL or whatever.

Later, I saw that he had taken interest in the knife. He had it out, the main blade opened, in a defensive stance.... poking it, and swinging it at my younger brother who was sitting on the couch. He was saying "I'm gonna cut ya!". Being silly.

He blatantly disregarded the words of my father spoken not one hour ago. My brother, who is a year younger than me, had enough. He stood up and took the Tinker away from him and put it in his own pocket. "You ain't ready for a knife yet." My dad sat there just shaking his head.

I blame it on the kid's environment. Even though the boy comes over and sees us big guys do work, and shoot etc on occasion, 99% of his life is spent with two awful teenage girls and a mom who acts just like they do. the only escape that he has is that little Nintendo, and knives are just weapons used in video games and movies.
 
gradall5200 said:
No shecky I didint expect cartwheels. What did ya want me to give a 9 year old a spyderco? he'd never held a knife before I thought a somewhat safe knife to start with would be sufficient. I didint even expect a thank you to tell ya the truth.- - Joel
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First fault, maybe.

Well, my son is about 6 years old and he gets a rounded Opinel 9 when he was 5. Actaully he carries a Fox Liner Lock folder with a short but pointy blade.

Big difference to your nephew: My sons father carries and uses a knife on a daily basis.

What might have been better?

At first: Don´t preach about anything!

Second: Of course, a save knife first makes sense, but if the boy could have a choice between two or three knives, he might felt better. Ability to handle pointy blades usually raises with age (and use of course).
 
I read an article a few months ago, and was talking about it with my wife a few days ago. She's an admissions advisor at a study abroad company and they have a lot of problems these days with immature American kids going abroad and doing stupid things and not reacting to situations like kids their age have done in the 80 years of the organization. Foreign kids have some of the same problems, but much less so when they come to the US.

The article was about a couple of long-term studies that showed essentially that kids in the US that were 8 years old had the maturity of a 4 year old compared to the late 60s and 70s. In other words, in three decades kids have dropped half their life skills and ability to cope with new and varied circumstances.

The article also mentioned some causes that related to kids not being able to go outside, spending less time with their parents and older children, as well as a general coddling of children these days. Video games and television were also mentioned, but they're of course typical scapegoats.

The reality is that adults make less money than they did 3 decades ago thanks to a lot of factors including inflation; instead of always having a parent home, now most kids at most see their parents for a couple hours a day, when those parents are already tired from work and everything else. Everybody vedges out in front of the television, the playstation or the computer.

Now to some extent you can't blame parents these days for not letting their kids outdoors; there's a lot of sickos waiting for a chance to do something to a kid. That's not likely to change for thebetter any time soon. Parents need to find ways for the kids to explore their imaginations and inner worlds though. When an 8 year old behaves like a child half his age a generation ago, things have gone far enough. What's next, middle school kids not being potty trained?


On another note, unless you're talking about fine handcrafted custom art-knives, a knife is a tool to many ends and that's all it is. I have a fascination with knives like many of you do, but if I didn't know what a knife was useful for, it would be a strange fascination indeed. I might as well pick up a bar-stock aluminum collecting hobby.

A child, or anyone for that matter needs to know what a knife can do to make his or her life better and more interesting. That is afterall why humans and some other animals use tools instead of just the appendages on their bodies. If a kid is unfamiliar with finding his own ways of play, from his own imagination with the objects surrounding him, he will not only never gain an appreciation of any kind of tool, but will also grow up to be a very very boring and uninteresting adult.

And of course that's what my wife's organization has seen recently. Teenagers who have little to say, little idea of what to do next besides facebook or xbox, and little idea of how to change the world so it is more pleasant and interesting to them and others.
 
bobofish said:
there's a lot of sickos waiting for a chance to do something to a kid. That's not likely to change for the better any time soon. What's next, middle school kids not being potty trained?
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Firstly, why are there so many more pedos now than the 60's? Was it just an ignored problem?

Second- while its not exactly potty-training, there are 4th and 5th graders in my old district who can't tie their shoes.:eek:
What a shame.:(
 
The way parenting is around here everyone is basically a latchkey kid. They're told never to go outside (too dangerous) and to entertain themselves with the tv or video games every night and on weekends.

Everything is based on expensive material possessions; all of my young nieces and nephews scream in anger if any present isn't a new gaming system or game cartridge. ADD and instant gratification is where it's at.

Since in most games you're flying 80 million dollar planes, or loaded up with machineguns and laser cannons, I can understand why a kid would look at a small knife he/she can't even go outside and use as uninteresting. Hell, for my 5 year old nephew my sister demands $50+ games as minimum presents. An $8.00 knife would get my whole family screaming for my head on a stake.:rolleyes:
 
My nephew, 11 years old, has a small folder he just loves. He likes his knife so much in fact that his mother uses it as leverage when he is not behaving. And it usually works. He sees my knives and can't wait to grduate to the next level in knifedom. Keep the faith. There are still some left following in our foot prints. ;)
 
Sorry to hear about your disappointment. The hardest part about individual differences is not in knowing that they exist--we all know that--it's when we get hit in the face with one we just don't understand.

I was at a child protection seminar today and the consensus on one case study was that because the children played outside all the time, there was some form of parental neglect! Now that opinion I JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND!----and I'm not sure I even want to.

Greg
 
Well i agree if...

What was the neglect? Was it, to let them play without constant watch? Or was it, that noone ever looked after them.

It is an interesting thing, not to blame the situation and leave all to the parents.

If it was like that: How could someone leave kids playing outside alone in that area? Instead of talking about what is going on, that kids are in danger out there, well ok, i would have been really upset too.
 
I got lucky with my Nephews I guess. All four are 16, and like shooting; one just got into knives. The one who's into knives was just given a cheap folder by my Father In-Law, and the first thing he does is comes to me, the Family Gun & Knife Nut, to ask how he should maintain, and sharpen his new knife. Of course I'm thrilled to educate the young lad. As he struggles through his first freehand knife sharpening lesson, it becomes apparent to him that he's NEVER going to get a decent edge on his blade. He proceeds to ask me why, and I politely explain that due to the low quality of steel in his knife, he will never get a decent edge. He shrugs, and says, "Oh well, it was a gift from Grandpa, so I'll display it with some of my other collectibles." A proud moment for me, as an Uncle, to witness the respect, and gratitude my Nephew had for his Grandfather. I plan on buying him a Kershaw for his birthday this year, and his first rifle (10/22) next year. He's a great kid, whose parents are going through a bad divorce, so I'm honored to be the one Uncle that he really looks up to.
 
Family Gun & Knife Nut
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LOL
I feel your pain

I am the Family Gun and Knife Nut
and
the Family Right Winger
I get ganged up on all the time

and his first rifle (10/22)
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Nice
I already told my nephew I was gonna buy him that for his 12th birthday
I got clearance from my brother.............
 
My sister's son is a trip. I only see the family about 3 or 4 times a year at most, but when I come and show off a gun or knife Tommy (about 5 years old now) runs and gets his toy Winchester and then proceeds to go to the kitchen and pull every knife out of the silverware drawer to show me that he too is well armed:)

Don't be discouraged by disinterest at an early age. My brothers 2 sons were an unholy mess when they were young. I hated being around them because of the constant bitching, whining and outright brawls over video games. Now, this past August the oldest one graduated from Paris Island and received my first attempt at a big bowie as a present. He was very enthusiastic and talks about it nearly every time he calls. His younger brother (15 years old) has taken to carrying a good sized fixed blade whenever we go sailing (BTW, chinese fire drill every time:) or just hanging around the house. It is incredible how much children can change, as I'd written them off long ago. Of course, my brother is an ex-marine and has managed to instill, through consistent example, a sense of honor and decency in them that transcended the idiotic parenting of his ex-wife and the messy divorce that went on for so many years.

Best Regards,

Dave
 
psycho78 - that is a real shame man, I know how that situation goes, at least the little guy has someone watching out for him. maybe making that difference in his life. He'll appreciate the tinker someday and you guys for watching out for him. - Joel
 
I had a similar experience last Xmas. I gave my 8 year old nephew a Daisy Red Rider deluxe set -- with extra BBs and small clay targets. He unwrapped it, thanked me then wanted to play his new playstation games. I think he has used it twice since.
 
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