Teens with knives and lifechanging decisions

I DID something stupid while holidaying on the Sunshine Coast last week.

It was around 4pm when my nine-year-old and I entered a shop selling exotic candies.

I noticed him right away, a tall, lean gangly boy not much older than 16.

He stood beside a refrigerated drinks cabinet, eyes fixed on the floor, a small black bag belted around his middle, a soda in hand.

I got the sense he was in ‘fight or flight’ mode.

As a mother of three boys, all now in their mid to late 20s, I recognised the look right away.

He was figuring out what to do next, does he run or does he stay.

The shopkeeper repeatedly asked to check his bag, put the soda back or buy it.

He had a soda in one hand, the other hovered over his bag.

“It’s not worth it, don’t wreck your life over a soda,” I said, mothering instinct taking over.

“Don’t risk your future for street cred.”

I couldn’t imagine my sons doing something as stupid as shoplifting and to my knowledge, they never have.

What struck me was the boy hadn’t run from the shop, soda in hand.

He was stuck between two worlds, one where he flees with his ill-gotten gains and the other where he either pays up or walks out empty handed

“Show him what’s in your bag,” I instructed, this time in full mother mode.

It worked.

“If you needed a soda that badly you just needed to ask and I’d given you one,” the shopkeeper said as he looked inside the bag.

The soda was returned to the fridge and the shopkeeper seemed satisfied.

“Does that happen often?” I asked.

“It does and he had a knife in that bag’, was the response.

He had a knife in that bag.

That young people carry knives is not news, carrying one can lead to life changing consequences.

Jack’ Law was introduced in response to the tragic stabbing death of Jack Beasley in 2019.

It means police can conduct metal detection operations to ensure knives aren’t carried about.

The young man who was stuck in his fight or flight mode had a few options, steal the soda and run from the shop, use the knife to hurt me or the shopkeeper or to open his bag for inspection and leave peacefully.

He chose the third option, thank goodness.

The shopkeeper told me young people come into his business all the time, they grab stock from the shelves and run off with it.

He teared up and was quite emotional about the whole thing.

He tends to his business alone and is unable to chase them down.

Police are shown CCTV footage, but ‘they ‘can’t do anything’ he said.

‘If someone is hungry or thirsty, rather than steal from me…they just need to say so and I’ll give it to them’, he said.

I asked how he felt after seeing the knife in this young man’s bag.

His response was he had a family to feed, he has to work, he worries he’ll become a statistic of juvenile knife crime.

The stupid thing I did was engage with the teen.

Not all teens are innocent and you never know when a split second reaction can change one life while ending another.

I had a conversation going back a few months with my sons about knife crime at Gold Coast transport hubs.

They said if they saw something going down they did nothing, they don’t engage or intervene.

I should not have said anything that day, I should have walked out of that shop with my child the moment I clocked what was going down.

Finding out there was a knife in his bag reminded me how things can go downhill fast.

In future I’ll reserve mothering for my children only.

There’s nothing heroic about taking a risk trying to parent a stranger’s child while putting your own at risk.