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?

Agreed.

You sound scared/frightened and this seems to have translated to misdirected anger.

If anything I'd be putting a complaint in with the bus service.

The nice well intentioned nice lady helped your child avoid detention and missing school. The failings were made by; the bus driver, who was apparently a dick; you, who missed his call and your DS, who in your opinion made a bad judgment call.

Redirect your fear/anger.

Part of societies problem is people dont look out for each other or intervene when children are struggling because they fear getting a load of abuse for their kind efforts/ trouble.

I stopped a man's unsupervised toddler falling off monkey bars and got mud on my coat and kick in the stomach from the child in question
Rather than thanking me he came over to give me a load of grief for "touching his child". I asked him if he'd have preferred his child fall and hurt themselves and he told me to stop being smug and go fuck myself. ?!?!? Right....
Again misdirected anger / fear.

No she wouldn’t. She’d have been advised to cover her arse by calling the parent/texting her details to reassure insane parents that she was safe.

People who respond like you are the reason no-one will help in an emergency. Had he been crying because he was ill, having an asthma attack etc and getting him home sooner got him treatment sooner, would you still have preferred he was left on the roadside? Get a grip.

^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^

This response says everything. You feel guilty OP, and you're angry at yourself, so you're looking for someone else to blame.

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

Here's hoping that one day a stranger doesn't help your child in their moment of need.

Yep!

Even if I felt uncomfortable about it (which I don't think I would anyway) I would be grateful that someone had helped my child when they were distressed. The chances of a mum with a young child in the car being some sort of serial killer or whatever is so low as to not even really be worth considering v the risk of a 12yo standing presumably near a road in the rain on his own with traffic going past.

You're defensive about it because you feel like you dropped the ball as a parent and someone else stepped in. That's not on them.

Which will probably happen again due to your lack of putting procedures in place.

and imagine how embarrassing it would be for your twelve year old if everyone hears about how he was sobbing at the side of a road because he missed the bus.

She did a kind thing, your DS is 12 and is obviously able to risk assess a situation and the chances of him being harmed are less likely than the chances of him being knocked over on his way to school.
Just remind him that if it were to happen again, tell him to make sure he speaks to you on the phone.

Heavens, op. You should be thanking her not trying to chastise her. And it’s good she did it- a distressed child crying in the street is vulnerable to actual predators. If you tell her to stop, you’ll make other children less safe.

Agree you don’t want this to happen again but the way to avoid it is to help your son know what to do if this happens again- basic things like knowing your number and having a charged phone. He needs to have a proper plan B in place so that he’s not vulnerable like this, because next
time it might not be this nice lady.

You’re upset and looking to blame someone but you’ve picked completely the wrong person. If I saw someone “shaming” someone on FB for helping a distressed child, I would think you were insane.

Agreed. I don't think there is anything wrong with offering.

How does a 5/6 minute drive take an hour to walk?

Our local bus service has an app which both of my kids have, so if that had happened they could look online and track the next one.

I'm trying to imagine your Facebook post, I'd imagine if you posted describing the situation most people would think you were reaching out to thank her for her kindness...but no!

Multiple parent fails here OP, so quite trying to blame others.

Have you complained to the bus company OP? That would be my first action. If the driver keeps not stopping, this is going to be a recurring problem for you.

Then I would have spoken to the school and told them that the bus is often unreliable, so could they bear that in mind when dishing out sanctions. I would have also told son that if he was late to school that a late sanction was not the end of the world. I assume that, as he has had some bullying incidences, he is wanting to keep his head down, so being late would be even more upsetting as it would draw attention. Poor boy, schools can be so stressful, especially when you're new. Does his teacher know? If so s/he can help to get sanctions lifted too.

The lady that seems to have drawn all of your ire was the one person trying to help your son out - she deserves thanks. She was driving along with a toddler in her car, probably with lots on her plate, but she saw a distressed child and offered help.

This happened once, so not the basis for a complaint.

I do wonder if he got upset because he forgot to stick his arm out (or he was distracted on his phone etc) and that's why he was distressed.

If a woman came on here saying her phone was on silent so her distressed child couldn't contact her in the pouring rain when he missed his bus and she was going to publicly try to shame the kind woman (with her toddler) for safely getting him home she'd get her arse handed to her. Oh wait.

In other words, you've had multiple parent fails on how to teach your 12 year old what to do if he misses his bus and you had your phone on silent so you want to let your guilt and anger out on someone who was able to and actually helped your son?

If I was that women and you decided I needed to telling off for helping a child, I wouldn't be slow in pointing out what you did wrong either.

Find her and thank her. Even if you can't bring yourself to do that, hopefully you've now realised you need to teach your son what to do when he misses a bus.

I think it so sad that everything is questioned so much these days, even when someone is clearly trying to help. I opened the door one afternoon to a woman and my 14yo DS who was covered in blood having taken a rather dramatic tumble off his skateboard in the middle of the road (that he shouldn’t have been on!). I was so grateful that her instinct was to help and drive him home rather than ignoring the “scary youth wearing a hoodie”. I was pretty impressed that she wasn’t too worried about blood on her car seat either.

I would go apeshit at the bus company though.

Jesus Christ OP, so your response to someone kindly helping your son is to try and publicly shame and embarrass them?
You are the one who messed up here, as pp said, it’s projection of your own guilt.

Don’t be so ridiculous

Well I didn’t. I posted about giving a kid I didn’t know a lift and got lots of thanks on my post!

I think it’s much easier to imagine the horrible (but extremely rare) consequences of things going wrong with a lift than the horrible but sadly more common consequences of a child being involved in a RTA from walking along a rural road.

The saying “no good deed goes unpunished” seems apt

What a lovely thing to do. Above and beyond. I can’t fathom people on here. I have stopped to offer support to a mum with a child vomiting in the road to see if she at least needed more bags or help (I did recognise her from one of my kids schools); I’ve stopped to check out whether a well dress but elderly man sitting on the pavement needed help and then called his family to collect him (interesting convo with my kids about that one as he’s had a couple of whiskeys on meds and they were then convinced for months that if you had ‘too much pop’ it made you fall down); and I’ve given a lift to an African woman in a hospice carers/nurse aux uniform as it was chucking it down and the road to the station near where I live doesn’t have pavement all the way, tho my kids were not with me. I think this is NORMAL behaviour and would always model it to my kids, with advice on being cautious to protect yourself (from people like the poster). Obviously with mobiles the quick help solution is often just to make a phone call, but even that can be the difference between saving a life or preventing harm.

The world is shitty enough as it is, if we harass people for showing some humanity then we might as well take up arms and lock ourselves into bunkers.

Whilst not ideal there are many scenarios where I wonder what others would do.
She may have had no time to wait around for him to get through to his dp with their phones on silence or for the police. She may have had to collect her own dc from somewhere. She may have had a hospital appointment that took months to get. She may have had to get to a job interview or a dozen other things that would cause her a real problem. What then? Drive off? Leave the kid? I can't see that going down well on here either. It's not black and white.

I did come across a toddler once. I called the police and they sent a car down but it was about 40 mins. I was ok I had the time. Others might not.

Are you for real? I'd be seeing if I could find her to thank her for ensuring your (previously bullied, as you mention) child got to school safely and presumably without sanctions... Whilst you were none the wiser he needed your help because your phone was on silent.

He judged the situation well and it was ok. I would stop to help a crying teenager. She had a child with her so I would say he made a call