Would you be happy with a stranger giving your DC a lift?

[friendsofatune]

12 year old, Year 7.

School is on the edge of nearby village. Bus turned up and drove off without stopping, despite him standing there

Woman saw what happened when getting in her car, asked if he was okay (he was crying), and said she would drive him

Journey was 5/6 minutes long. About 50/60 minutes if walking it.

Is this overstepping the mark and scary behaviour that a complete stranger would do this?

With this in mind, do you think I should try and find out who she is via the village FB group? And explain that it was really wrong?

She can't keep on doing this! Doesn't matter how good her intentions are

Good grief, are you really going to chastise this women for helping your son out ? her actions were kind and considerate, he came to no harm and got home safely.

Is this really the society you want to live in, where kids in distress are ignored by adults.?
if you really are upset by all this then that’s your prerogative, but it’s your son you need to chastise here not the woman who got him home safely..
You would be completely out of line to contact her unless your intentions are to thank her.

As above. A complete hysterical over reaction to a non-event, and then wanting to publicly shame the woman who did nothing more than try to help a crying child stuck in the rain.

I imagine you'd have a similar reaction if she had refused to help him.

I would have offered him a lift. He is 12 so I wouldnt give it a second thought. If he was younger then I'd have asked if he wanted to call his Mum or Dad.
I've offered lifts to single or pairs of kids waiting for buses before and given them a lift home. They are secondary school age and waiting for the bus to travel about 8 miles to the town where I live. The buses are only every half an hour so it can save them a good amount of time.
We have a little chat and I usually drop them at their homes.

I don't see an issue with it at all.

What a lovely thing to do.
I'm baffled by some of the comments on here!
I too would have driven him home

And absolutely do not contact her through the local Facebook page unless it is to give her a bottle of wine and express your gratitude

I have always taught my four that if you are lost look first for a policeman ( unlikely to be handy) so then look straightaway for a mother with children , if none around go to a shop, any shop and ask to use the phone ( pre them having mobiles).

Jesus OP, only track down the woman if you are going to thank her very much for helping out your child in need!!

My 17 year old DD accepted a lift from a 'sttange' woman a couple of weeks ago. She was very distressed (she'd just witnessed something terrible). Her dad was a couple of hours away, and I was working and incommunicado. We were simply grateful someone had helped.

She did give my DD her business card, and when we googled her we recognised her.

I think the woman was fine to offer your DS a lift, and his reasoning for accepting the lift was sensible.

'She can't keep doing this' 🙄
For goodness sake, she didn't set out to cause a problem, she saw an upset child and did a kind thing. If you don't want your son to accept it that's a chat to have with him.

You see so many posts whinging about how it takes a village, why does no-one like children any more, how awful it is that this thing happened and no-one offered to help.
This is why.

I will not be a person who ignores a child crying by the road. So I would have a chat and help them work out a solution, which might involve giving them a lift.

She sounds like she was being kind. He made a sensible decision based on the situation.

Of course she can keep offering help. I think it would probably be more sensible to give him a "good, better, best" method of dealing with something like this.

So "best" would be to get hold of you/if it's light and there are pavements then just walk.

If there aren't pavements then what's the next best thing in your view - to call a taxi? Tbh I would actually guess the risk is lower from a mum with a toddler but anyway.

And then the next option would be accepting a lift with mitigations - i.e. asking to see their id/send (and say he's sending) their registration number to his mum.

Because that would have been a sensible mitigation that didn't just require him to stand alone in the rain while you didn't answer his phone.

If you are going to allow children out on their own you have to give them the tools to deal with situations like this. And a blanket no isn't the tool. You also need to scaffold them towards making sensible decisions when they're an adult - and again, a blanket no isn't the answer.

I suspect I'm unusual by Mumsnet standards because I have done some (relatively minor) hitchhiking and have also picked up and driven various people home when it's been dark/raining and they've been stranded in the countryside.

Sounds like a compassionate mother showing generosity to a crying young boy. Statistically he’s more likely to be hit by a car walking along the road alone than the chances she’s a rogue pedophile who has already abducted a baby and is now looking for more. But I’d be more concerned that you don’t know if a stranger is safe to drive / could crash etc (although again, how much do you know about the coach driver too!?)

I would just tell your son what to do next time but it’s a shame an act of kindness is viewed with suspicion isn’t it. Seems far more sinister to see a child in distress and leave them stuck when you could easily help them.

Glad I’m not the only one! I’d have been much more worried about my son walking along a rural road alone (so many are killed this way) that I’d be v grateful to a mother taking pity on him.

You sound like a maniac. I’d suggest you’re turning your guilt at not being available to help your son on to a kind stranger doing a good thing. You were the one who let him down if anything by having no means of contact , and the bus driver for not stopping. You’ve let him down again by making him feel bad for ‘doing the wrong thing’ when he made a judgement call, it was arguably safer than the alternatives. Maybe you’d have made a different call for him but you weren’t available to help so he made his own call. Shaming him and this poor woman is pretty bizarre behaviour.

I've always told my children to go into a shop to ask for help or to look for a mother with children. Mothers with children don't want to kidnap another one - they have enough on their hands!

This woman did something kind. Would you have preferred that she left him there crying?!

It does matter how good her intentions are. I personally would help if I could in that situation because I know that I am not going to hurt anyone. Much better that I help than someone else comes along who has other intentions. She did the right thing and probably went out of her way to do it. If she was putting her toddler in the car she presumably lives nearby and would keep an eye out for your son or any other child in distress at the bus stop another time. If you find her it should only be to thank her.

In terms of your son you need to explain that you were really scared but talk through alternative plans that he can follow if it happens again. Unfortunately school buses are not the most reliable. Have you found out why it didn't stop? Was it full? If it is only 5-6 min drive I am guessing he is one of the last to get on. Is he not visible enough flagging it down? Was he looking at the phone rather than if the bus was coming? Then also give him strategies of what to do the next time it happens. At this stage in yr7 they are probably at the really strict point so he is probably anxious about what would happen if he is late.

If you saw a 12yr old standing at the bus stop crying what would you do?

If a woman came in here asking if she was being unreasonable to have driven a 12 year old home, that she doesn't know, without asking their parent, she would have got her arse handed to her

Your son tried to get a hold of you.
You didn't answer your phone.
That's on you.
The woman saw a child crying and helped him.
And now you want to try and find her to berate her.

Seriously what's wrong with you.
Would you rather she left him there and he'd probably more than likely have something happen.
You should be glad there's still some people with compassion.

I do think that actually we need to teach children that not all strangers are dangerous.

Because if they do meet a stranger that tries to hurt them/kidnap them, they probably need to rely on other strangers to help with that.

So if you need help, a mother with a child is statistically the safest person to get help from.

However, they should also know the kind of help that it is OK to accept and the help that isn't. In this case, not OK to get into a car without telling anyone else first. And I am surprised the woman didn't know that. This could have been made far safer if the child had been told by the woman to phone home/school and give details of the car he wanted a lift in, and possibly stayed on the phone while he was in the car.

OP, you are starting to sound insane. How could she have got your permission if you weren't answering the phone?
How frequent are the buses? Was there any other way for him to get home which didn't involve walking? Or was it on the way to school, in which case would you have been angry if he had gone back home?

She did a kind thing. Talk to him about sending you the reg number if it were to happen again. If you want to rant at someone, call the bus company.

Sorry, I'm insanely anxious and even I think the responses on here are too much. Women are statistically less risk. He had no way of getting home, you didn't answer, he made an appropriate judgement on risk and got home safely. I think he did well. I think it was a kind thing the woman did (and actually brave of her, maybe your son might have been a risk to her and her toddler?)

OP this is an issue with you and your son, not the woman who helped. Yes it's a little strange but no harm no foul.

You need to teach your son not to just dissolve into tears if he misses the bus. He needs to contact you to let you know, and either wait for the next one or walk. If he doesn't want to do either of those, then he goes back to school and asks to wait there until other transport can be organised for him.

Am horrified by your response. She did a nice thing to get him home safely when he was distressed. I’s hope she would always step in to help and not be a bystander. In your shoes I’d be thanking her.

The issue here is a) that you were uncontactable at a time when he needed you (you need to ensure that at home-time you answer your phone) and b) he accepted a lift from a stranger because he didn’t have a plan C (calling you was the plan B).

You are misdirecting your guilt and concern for your son on a very kind woman who helped.