to think I made a bit of a twat of myself at DSs school?

[DroppingIn]

My car has been off the road this week as it needs major repairs that will cost more than the car is worth so I will have to get a new one in the next few weeks. I usually pick DCs up from school.

The DTSs (Yr 7) secondary school is 3 miles away and the only bus to here leaves from there at 3.15pm so they need to go straight to the bus stop or have to walk. I have given them bus money but one or the other of them has either 'lost' it, did not get to the bus stop in time (dawdling around school) or they decided to spend it on crap and walk.

DTS2 was diagnosed late last year with learning difficulties and in some areas, the cognitive abilities of a 6 year old (he's 12). I really don't know how to deal with him, I admit, as he's an obnoxious little bugger but I know a lot of it is down to his brain function and he can't help it.

Today I told them both to get the bus without fail as I needed to go out and I wanted them home before I did. DTS1 texts me to tell that his brother is not at the bus stop so he's getting the bus anyway. I texted back (he does not answer phone) that he has to wait for his brother as DTS2 does not have a phone (they share one) and I don't want him walking back on his own (quite busy roads) as he has never do so before. Anyway DTS1 was already on the bus so it was done. When he got back he said he could not see DTS2 anywhere.

I waited until 4.00pm which would have given DTS2 enough time to walk back if he was walking and then started to get a bit panicky purely because of his learning diffs and the fact he had no phone. So then decided to start walking to the school expecting to meet DTS2 on the way, hopefully close to home just to settle my mind. He was not anywhere on the road, so I walked the 3 miles quite quickly panicking all the bloody way and arrived at the school (no sign of DTS2 outside) a sweaty, red faced mess smelling a tad BOey which I was about and because I wore my Birkenstocks I could hardly walk.

The lady in the office kindly led me around the school to try to find DTS2 and then he walked down the corridor in front of us innocently saying that he had been looking for DTS1 and was just about to start walking. This was almost 2 hours after school had finished (they are open til 5pm for afterschool activities).

I led DS out holding my hands behind my back to stop myself from strangling him and had to spend £10 on a taxi home so I could get back in time to go out again.

I am fucking furious at myself for being so panicky and think I must have looked like a right twat to the office staff. They can't get many parents of secondary school aged DC coming in looking like they've climbed Kilimanjaro panicking because their DC have gone missing. DTS2 is 5ft 9 and a size 10 shoe so no tiddler. Should I have just left it and let him make his own way home? Worried school have marked me down as a complete loony now .

TBH when you work in a school it's almost a relief to deal with someone in a totally normal and understandable panic....often we are dealing with situations where parents really couldn't care less (well, not often, usually the same people over and over though) and it's really depressing.

You acted completely reasonably and will have come across and a very worried and totally lovely mum.

No, they'll have you down as one of the good ones.

Maybe time to get them a phone each?

DS2 who has ASD, caught the wrong bus home in October of Y7. I was never so glad for his mobile phone. Otherwise it would have been the police. 'My DS2, age 11, with SN is somewhere on some bus in a four mile radius of his school. Can you find him, please?'

One phone call to his mobile, quick look on google maps for the street name and I had picked him up within 10 minutes.

why would the dogs sit on the bottles?

I imagined it more a lovely vineyard run by stylish dogs sporting fetching berets

Madame forget it, your idea sounds MUCH nicer

OP, you will indeed now be pegged as a good un, and school will work with you to make sure he doesn't 'lose himself' in the library, or wherever.

A woman I work with received one of those automated texts saying that her daughter was not in school so please call in and provide a reason (her daughter is in secondary school). Sge knew her daughter had left for school that morning.

Rather than call the school, or her daughter, her first reaction was to call the police saying that her daughter must have been abducted or involved in an accident.

The police quickly verified that she was in fact sat in class but had got missed off the register for whatever reason. But no-one thought the Mum was a twat, she was just panic stricken.

indeed lurleene, I had the exact same thing happen. except I assumed ds had got into school late, so I just swung by when out at about to verify, to find out he had not gone to school at all.

Police called, EWO on the case, me in bits, all his mates interrogated. Finally found hiding under his bed, he had had a meltdown due to SN about being late for school half way there and had simply climbed in through his bedroom window and hidden.

NOBODY thought I was crazy.

The most shocking thing in this thread, if I'm reading right, is that he's yr7 and almost six foot? What the hell are you feeding him?

My 12 year old is 5'10 with size 10 feet.......and he's not the biggest in his class

OP, they definitely wont think badly of you, on the contrary they will be pleased that he has a caring parent.

Yes Madame, it would be more worrying if we weren't bothered for sure.

You can buy a cheap mobile for 99p from any Orange shop. I got one for dh who is technophobic. He loves it because it makes calls and texts and nothing else. A useful extra payg for your two maybe for emergencies.

Good idea for the OP. DS's school does not allow mobiles or any kind of techno thing at all, so not an option for us.

Not at all - you were reasonably concerned and it reflects well on you as a mum.

Here's a story to cheer you up:- over here in Virginia the schools have stupid early release days where the kids let out at seemingly random times, on random days and with no logical pattern. So it might be 1.15pm on a Thursday or 2.20 on a Friday... For teacher paper work etc. I have always been chronically disorganized so I often missed early release and had to be ring by the school secretary to pick up a child... No helped by having two primary aged kids in separate schools with different bus times. An

Anyhow, the day in question I went to the bus stop for my daughter at the usual school end time. Half an hour waiting and I was worried so I rang the school... They told me it had been early release and she should have been home 2 hours ago! They also said she wasn't there at the school. I freaked the heck out and drove straight to the school in a panic waiting to find out if the bus driver might have taken her else where, or had she missed the bus etc etc... She knew she could walk the two blocks home from the bus stop if I wasn't there so I really believed she had been abducted and was an hysterical wreck.

Turned out the other mum who used the same bus stop ha taken her home. She hadn't thought to ring me as she figured it was better to just keep my daughter until regular bus drop off then bring her out to me - only they lost track of time. Never been so relieved in my life - those ten minutes of panic were awful, and the head teacher had been in the office when I ran in crying and looking for the child who I should have noticed was missing two hours earlier... Embarrassing!

A boy in my class (year 8) hadn't arrived home and his mum came in to look for him. I just remember thinking how sensible she was to come looking and it was nice to deal with a parent who actually cared for a change. Luckily, he was in an after school club that he'd forgotten to tell his mum about.

I wonder why someone in the school did not ask your child why they were wondering round at that time.

I have a child with SN who is going into yr 7 in Sept and I am hoping he will walk to and from school. He does have a phone but forgets to switch it on! aarrgghhh!!!

I think that now this has happened you may have to re-think the transport for him as he does not appear capable to think logically about what to do.

As a safeguarding issue though, why aren't the school answering the phone after 4? That is what I would bring up with the school. Surely if parents are ringing after 4, then it is going to be something relatively important like a child not being home yet.

My son has similar trouble, I've called the police in a panic over him before. He can't take a mobile to school, It wouldn't last a week.

Wish he had a twin brother to keep an eye out for him

both I and my mother when she picks up my girls, have plenty of awkward moments. dd now in sixth form, only last year, forgot the time, while staying on late for art, queue a very worried dm - no mobile signal - and someone in the shcool looking for dd, and this has happened more than once.

I don't think that you need another phone.

I think that in this case there should have been clear rules that they come home together be that on the bus or walking, and to let you know when they were both underway.

Perhaps help from the school to organise T2 if necessary.

my other dd of 14 has a mobile which never seems to work , and she is a law unto herself. i used to have other friends and friends mothers on speed dial lookign for her.

He needs his own phone.

I'm totally bewildered by this thread. When op said ability of a 6 year old the first thing I thought was "what on earth is he doing making his own way home?" My dd is going to comp this sept and has Downs. I resigned myself that I'll always have to drop off and pick up.

Now I'm really confused about my own situation as everyone thinks him being responsible for getting himself home is normal, I should have a rethink