Enraged father with-cerebral palsy daughter on bus

[TerryJ2]

Right reaction, wrong approach. Sigh.


http://news.mydaily.com/2010/09/17/scare-tactics/?icid=main|htmlws-main-n|dl7|sec1_lnk3|171215

 

[AnnieO]

...Wow... I hope they get him anger management classes instead of jail time. I understand how he felt, but that just made things worse for his daughter...

 

[KTMom91]

I saw this clip on the news, and you're right, Terry...there's a better approach.

I feel badly for his daughter...I'm sure she was horribly embarrassed seeing her dad storm the bus like that, even if (or especially if) it was in her defense.

 

[svengandhi]

I am SO glad that we are finally through with the school bus. Youngest is in middle school which is walking distance.

H once got on the bus and ripped a new one into a kid who had been bullying my oldest son. We also threatened to sue the SD and go to the media. They finally removed the bully (son of the PTA president).

This dad has my sympathy.

 

[Marguerite]

I've had to sit on my hands so often, to avoid being accused of being as bad as the bullies.

on the other hand, difficult child 3's friend's mother is the sort to confront the bullies in just this manner. She has told me of several occasions where she got in the car and drove around until she saw her son's tormentors, then got out of the car and threatened them (really threatened them - her husband is a big man!) then got back in the car and drove off. She felt this was the right way to handle it. I think she is just plain lucky to not have had the police at her door for threatening behaviour.

The trouble is - my friend has had far better results than I have, in stopping the bullying!

We shouldn't have to feel this is our only choice.

Marg

 

[1 Day At a Time]

There was a segment on this story on Good Morning America last week. I was shocked when I viewed GMA's "Shout Out" Bulletin board and saw that most people who responded supported the Dad's attempts to help his daughter - but of course, disagreed with his language and threats. People from all around the country recounted bullying situations that their children had faced or were currently facing. The number of stories was just staggering, and the posters were overwhelmingly in support of the Dad.

The news story was more in depth, and it related all of the many attempts this father had made to work with the school administration and work with the school bus driver to solve this problem. He was truly at the end of his rope. I know that I can relate, but my approach would be to take my child off the bus.

Valerie

 

[Marguerite]

On the one hand, there are right ways and wrong ways to resolve these problems. We all know this. But too often we have seen the right way ignored and found ourselves being bullied in our own turn, as we are pressured to just let it go. And on the other hand we know that too often, almost all the time in fact, bullying continues despite efforts to resolve things properly and appropriately.

Taking your daughter off the bus is one solution. But then the bullies have won. Why should the victim have to be the one to be disadvantaged? She has a right to be included and to be safe in a supervised environment. If the parents remove her for her own safety, it means the bullies are given the message that they can do what they like. It also indicates to them that their efforts to intimidate have been successful and they can continue (or even ramp it up ) with impunity.

Sometimes there is no right way any more.

I also find it interesting that although we would say that the balance of bullies to victims would be fairly even, almost everybody identifies with the victim. Is this because even bullies have experienced being victimised too?

Marg

 

[DammitJanet]

I felt for the guy. Yeah he was wrong for storming the bus and shouting bad language but for the bullying to happen on that bus with the driver doing nothing and the school doing nothing, I dont much blame him. From the stories I have heard, he has tried to work the correct channels to no avail.

Those kids threw condoms on that kid and teased her horribly! They pulled on her ears!

That one really gets me. See, when Cory was in first grade, the bullies on the bus would pull on his ears because they would turn red when they did it and it made him mad and they would get to see him go off. Well, the bus driver would yell at him to sit down and shut up. One day they pulled to hard on his ear and tore it away from the top of his head. He was screaming and crying but the bus driver would have no part of trying to stop the other kids even though Cory had blood dripping down his face. They suspended Cory from the bus for screaming but did nothing to the bullies that hurt him. I should have got on that bus and done what this father did but I was too much of a coward.

 

[Shari]

Unfortunately, Marg, you're dead on, again. The "right" response very often fails to get the "right" result. Its sad.

I am not proud of it, but when Wee was barely 4, I resorted to "payment in kind" with a group of kids. We were camping and Wee was playing on the playground equipment next to our camper. There was a group of kids there, also, the oldest of which was probably 11 or 12 and another little girl, about Wee's age. This group of kids tried to get Wee to hit the little girl with a plastic baseball bat. Wee instead, turned it on the "leader" of the group, and beat the tar out of him. I moved quickly, but Wee got in several good swings before I got to him and stopped him. His friends were laughing hysterically because he was being severely beaten by a little kid.

For the next several days, this kid taunted Wee from a distance, encouraging a "rematch". I talked to him, I talked to his friends, I talked to the parents, and still, the kis had free run of the campground and it continued.

Finally, one afternoon, Wee was back on the play equipment, and these kids showed up. I was out of view of them, but within earshot, and the "leader" sent another kid for the bat, and told Wee they were going to fight again. When the kid showed up with the bat, I stepped in and grabbed it from him. I held the bat high and told that kid that Wee was a young child with delays and he looked up to older kids to show him right from wrong, and last I knew, fighting with a 4 year old wasn't cool for a kid of any age over 5. I told him if I heard one more word of this rematch, that I would take the bat to him myself.

Unfortunately, that worked.

 

[donna723]

I can easily see how the guy was at the end of his rope and finally just exploded. Makes you wonder why the school district has done nothing and why the bus driver hasn't taken steps to put a stop to it! They need a bus monitor, or even volunteer parents if there's no money in the budget for paid monitors.

In our rural area, when my kids were in school all the kids rode the same bus, from the kindergartners to the ones in high school, which sometimes caused problems for the little ones. The driver, JW, had been around for so long that the parents of many of these kids had the same bus driver and they backed him up 100%! It might have been "rough justice", and they could never get away with it now, but his tactics worked and NOBODY acted up for very long on his bus! He kept a big, heavy stick under the drivers seat. If somebody acted up, he would stop the bus on the side of the road, pull out his stick, wave it around and threaten to do severe bodily harm to the guilty parties! He never actually used the stick but they all had it in their minds that he just might and it worked! And if nobody would 'fess up as to who the guilty party was, that bus would sit right there on the side of the road until somebody did! And he did not care how long they sat there either! Then the parents of the guilty party would get a phone call from him that evening, and it was a sure thing that if they acted up on JW's bus, they'd be in big trouble at home too because the parents backed him up! Can you imagine that happening now? I can't either! But I NEVER worried about my kids when they were on JW's bus!

When he finally retired, he was replaced by one who listened to music on ear phones and was completely oblivious to what was going on behind him, and then the problems started. When my son started school, he was little and skinny and quiet, a natural "target" for the bullies. My daughter was five years older and weighed less than 100 pounds at the time, but she had a mouth on her that wouldn't stop and was NOT someone you wanted to mess with when she got mad! Anyone who wanted to pick on her little brother had to deal with her first and they were all afraid to! She once pulled a kid twice her size off of her brother and slung him back in his seat! Of course, she shouldn't have had to do this ... For several years this skinny, mouthy little girl acted as the "enforcer" on the school bus, and they really missed her when she didn't ride the bus any more! Sad, isn't it!

 

[DammitJanet]

Well, we all saw from the fact that we all saw this, that there is video on that bus! It should have taken them all of two seconds to respond to the bullies.

When I rode a bus, our bus drivers did the old pull off the road too. If we got loud, started a ruckus or whatever, driver stopped and refused to drive until we got quiet. Since most kids wanted to get home all it took was the threat. We also knew that we would get in trouble at home if the school called.

I can already tell with Keyana that they are teaching them about calling the police if anyone touches them or spanks them! She is 4 for gosh sakes. She said something the other day about police and jail and handcuffs. I asked her point blank where she had learned about people going to jail and how people are arrested because we have been VERY careful to keep all that stuff away from her because of Cory. She knows nothing. She has never seen him in cuffs, she has never been told anything. She said the school told her that if people like your parents or anyone hits you then they can be put in handcuffs and taken to jail...how obnoxious...lol.

 

[TerryJ2]

my approach would be to take my child off the bus.

After exhausting other approaches, I would, too.

But I also agree, that having a camera on the bus should have resolved the issue to begin with. So sad.