Teaching Kids Knife Safety


“Flesh runs from steel”. That’s an old Filipino expression. You can probably recall the last time you accidentally cut yourself. We’ve all had it happen to us. When that blade touches your skin, you retract your hand or pull away. Getting cut hurts and we all have a visceral reaction to the idea of it. Compound this idea with thoughts of your kids or kids entrusted to you and your blood pressure and stress levels will skyrocket. You never want to see a child in pain and yet there will come a time when you must teach a child how to use a knife because one day, they’ll need to. This task can be daunting but there are some very easy rules a kid can follow that you are probably already familiar with. When emotions overpower how we think, we can default to a proven method of breaking down safety by looking to another tool kids should know how to use. If you’re familiar with the 4 Rules of Firearms Safety popularized by Jeff Cooper, you’ll appreciate this methodology.

All Knives Are Sharp


I’m sure Andy Roy will have an opinion on this one since his Fiddleback Forge Knives are some of the sharpest and keenest cutters I’ve used. Sharp is a relative term but I’ll say his knives are a cut above the rest (this pun is terrible and intended). We must teach kids to respect all knives even if they are not a Fiddleback; even if they are dull. With enough force and some carelessness, a less than Fiddleback Forge knife will still cut badly. Much like we all should respect firearms that are unloaded and handle them as if they are, we should always assume a knife is sharp and never handle it in a way that would lead to a careless cut. We don’t want kids tossing a knife from hand to hand, setting it down when it should belong in a sheath, or otherwise playing with and disrespecting it. If a knife is dull, we want to sharpen it since a sharp knife is safer than a dull one. That said, tell your kids every knife is sharp to teach them respect. When they get old enough, teach them to determine if they truly are sharp when they have demonstrated respect in their actions.

Never Point Your Knife at Anything Your Unwilling to Cut

Muzzle management is a firearms safety fundamental. We never want the muzzle of a firearm to cross anything we are not willing to shoot, destroy, or pay for. When we hand a firearm over to another person for inspection, we would never point the muzzle at the person in the process and I don’t know many who like their muzzle pointed back at them when holding a pistol from the barrel or long gun from the forend. Think of how this applies to knife safety. We should never let the tip of a blade point at another person. When you pass a knife to another person, take a cue from my Sayoc Kali brothers and pass it with the tip down in a neutral position. We shouldn’t move around the campfire with the tip of our knife pointed at anyone. When the resident camp canine runs by, we want to teach kids to hold their knife in a way that won’t injure fido. That same muzzle management we are adamant about upholding is the same we can apply to our edged tools.

Keep Your Finger Away from the Edge

Trigger finger discipline is the act of keeping your finger out of the trigger guard until you are ready to fire. This does not mean hovering your finger over the trigger inside the guard but rather going “long finger” up on the stock or high on the frame. A knife doesn’t have a trigger (unless you want to consider some folding knife nail nicks, thumbstuds, or levers/buttons on automatic knives) but they do have edges we don’t want to put our fingers near. We can apply trigger finger discipline to how we should stress the importance of keeping your fingers away from the edge as you are cutting. We should stress the potential effects of what happens when a finger carelessly finds its way to a trigger or in the path of an edge. This applies when we are using knives in the kitchen for paring, when we are fine carving bow drill divots with the tip of our blade, or any other time when a finger could be in the path of the blade but should be to the side of it. It also applies when we draw the blade or resheath it. We never want to put our fingers in the path of the blade around the opening of a sheath since the knife edge will cut indiscriminately if we are careless.

Know What You’re Cutting and What Is Beyond It

Kids have a tendency of thinking in the moment. They don’t think about the second or third order effects of their actions. In the same way, kids may not realize what is beyond their immediate fixation. They may know they have to cut an apple,hold it in the palm of one hand, and cut toward it with a knife in the palm of the other hand. Kids need to be taught to look beyond what they are working with the same way we learn to know our target and what is behind it. We always check our backstop and make sure if we hang a target, we know where the bullet will go when it passes through the paper. Kids need to be taught that a knife could potentially “go on forever” and cut in a line beyond what they see. A great way to get kids to safely work with a knife is to have them sit with their elbows on their knees. This puts the “blood triangle” that is formed with the femoral arteries behind the cutting edge instead of in front of it. We also can show kids how to cut on top of a stable platform or work surface. This helps them push the knife against the object against a surface that won’t give. This is particularly useful when a child lacks hand strength. Keep in mind, you may be very comfortable cutting toward yourself with advanced carving techniques but the child watching you doesn’t understand how they are done. They see the gross movement and not the nuances. Beware the audience that watches you as they may pick up some of your habits when you least expect them to. 

Additional Rules


The four firearm safety rules we all recognize are a great starting point for a discussion on knife safety. We know there are additional rules that help ingrain good habits. We can teach kids that a properly maintained knife is a safe tool. This means making sure the knife is put away in a condition you would want to find it in when you reach for it. Removing residual food from the blade, cleaning the knife handle of sap or dirt, or even conditioning and treating the leather sheath every so often are examples of how a knife should be maintained. You can also teach a child that a knife must be carried consistently in the same place for it to be accessed readily when it is needed. This means a child should learn to carry their knife in the same manner each time they bring it into the field whether that is on their belt, in their backpack, or in a box of equipment they are allowed to use in the back of the family car. Another important rule and one my father stressed to me when I was young was always putting away your knives, firearms, or anything that could be used as a weapon at night. This can be extended to the day too. Children should learn they must return their knives where they belong and never leave them out where they could be found by younger siblings not ready to use knives or taken away by neighborhood kids with bad intentions. 

 At some point, we won’t be around to supervise knife use. We need to set the next generation up for success and the way to do that is to fall back on what is already established. Applying the rules of firearm safety is the way. Afterall, a blade can have disastrous consequences, much like a firearm, if handled improperly.

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