"Story Time"

[l Captain Obvious l]

I don't really see why Carol teaching those kids how to handle knives and how to defend themselves would be something Rick wouldn't aprove of. Any thoughts on it?

[Willow_SheWolf]

That confused me too and truth be told, I don't really know what to make of it.

Maybe Rick's taken a step back into -how Shane put it- 'fantasy land'. He doesn't think the children should be learning how to do this stuff because he thinks the grown-ups can handle everything and to teach them would only enforce that the danger is real and that this happy community thing is just an illusion.

Or, looking at it from another angle, he may be weary that these kids will try to be like Carl was in the second season and think they're being bada**es and try to practice their new skills on walkers. These kids have already proven they don't have a lick of common sense between the lot of them, maybe it's a good thing they're not trusted with weapons?

[Amy Arsonist]

I think they're going to a second extreme. In the first two seasons Carl got a weapon and because he wasn't taught to respect walkers it led to a death. Then in season three Hershell and Rick are under the impression that Carl shot a kid in cold blood. So they probably think they started him too early.

However, it looks like instead of teaching gun safety/walker respect/etc they're going to the other side of the spectrum and just trying to shield the kids for as long as possible.

I do think they should focus more on teaching people what they saw at the CDC. That these walkers aren't alive and that there is 0% chance of them maintaining anything of their former selves because that part of their brain is now dead. The blond girl was a good indication that this still isn't common knowledge and I don't know how they let something like that happen.