Yesterday afternoon I was on a team with DS(16). A group of young teens got on and barged passed an older lady to get a group of seats together opposite us. An off duty driver made them apologise to the lady they'd pushed out the way.
When the conductor came round for fares they messed about pooling their change, looking on phones for how much they had in their bank accounts, patting their pockets to see if they had any more cash.... they clearly couldn't cover their fares.
After say 5 mins of this, I asked the conductor how much he was short (55p) and paid it for the kids and told them to sort their manners out.
One of the kids, the conductor and the off duty driver thanked me, and we all got in with our days.
DS was outraged that I'd "rewarded" the teenagers that had been so rude in barging up the tram to their seats. I said I wasn't helping them, I was helping the conductor, and I'd taken the opportunity to reprimand the teens. I also said that's hope that if he was in trouble in future, a stranger might help him out. I also told him about an occasion when he was 3 or 4 and we were very skint, and someone behind me in the queue at Aldi had made up a shortfall (less than 50p) on my shopping.
Who was right? Me or DS? Or would you have done soothing different? Ignored it?