Dad Apologizes For Losing Cool On School Bus?

In My Humble Opinion
21

The best way of handling bullying is to raise hell at school officials. I would have yelled at the bus company owner and the school principal.

If nothing were done I would sue them. I’m sure that’s some version of neglect if I tell the school officials that my kid is being bullied and they do nothing.

Tape recorders don’t cost that much these days. Drop one in your daughters book bag and carry one when you inform the school about the bullying. That would be enough for any jury to send the kid to a nice private school at the expense of the public school.

Or, you can go to a PTA meeting with a flier of your daughter’s story and the school’s inaction. The parents that go to PTA meetings won’t ignore it.

22

Kids with disabilities are routinely bullied, especially on school buses. Even when their IEP says that they shouldn’t ride a bus alone because of it, it happens, and school districts usually try to insulate themselves by claiming lack of funds to provide legally mandated aides, or by saying that the kid never complained so no one knew.

One would think that teachers, administrators, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and other adults are turning a wholly blind eye to what’s going on right in front of their faces.

I think it’s more a matter of an institutional belief within our educational system (and actually, our society overall) that bullying is just “kids being kids” or “just the way things go.” It’s pretty clear that in some cases in schools, the adults who should be stomping out bullying are identifying with the bullies, not the victims, and feeling that if the victims just stood up for themselves or made themselves more “acceptable” (lost weight, hid their sexual orientation, had a “normal” gender presentation, worked harder to “beat” a speech impediment, acted tougher since they were short or disabled, etc.) they wouldn’t be bullied, so it’s just as much their fault as the bullies’ fault.

So if I were a parent of a chronically bullied child, especially a child being victimized on the basis of her disability? Yeah, I’d go ballistic on the kids, on the bus driver, on the brats’ parents, and the principal. Because there is a choice made to do these things, there is a choice made not to notice this nonsense, or to not do anything about it, and that choice is not acceptable.

23

The way the article reads, it seems he’d have been fine if he didn’t use expletives or threaten to kill.

24

Yeah, I would be upset if my kid was a little shithead of a bully, too.

25

The death threats crossed a line, but other than that I’m 100% behind this dad.

When I was a kid, if I ever did something that caused an unrelated adult to yell at me, my parents would have rained hell down on me, not the adult.
And I could definitely be a little shit sometimes – like most kids, I think. But it was getting called on my shit that helped me learn what is and isn’t appropriate behavior.

Get off my lawn.

26

Yes, this is where he starts to lose his “I’m imposing needed discipline” cred and shades off into “I can be just as much of a bully as these kids.”

27

I’m completely with the dad on this one too. He yelled at some kids. For that he gets arrested? The kids were being shits and finally got called on it by one adult in their lives actively taking an interest in modifying their behavior and what do the kids learn from it? That the adult was wrong and they were right and it’s perfectly acceptable to keep doing what they were doing because no one has the power to stop them.

28

Everybody talks about the right not to be abused. Everybody talks about protecting your own family. Everybody talks about protecting the innocent.

Everybody talks about the importance of standing up for something. Everybody talks about the right to self-defense.

For all this damned talk, people sure do get bent out of shape when somebody actually does something, don’t they?

.

29

Poor dad.

Fuck those kids. It might be time to find a sympathetic 16 or 17 year old to crack some skulls. God, this makes me so angry! I can’t even say more, I’m so full of rage. Ugh.

30

Florida buses sit two to a seat.

If the dad didn’t make an effort to resolve this by talking to school officials or the driver, it’s on him. If he did, and they ignored him, he can go crazy.

31

You know what’s sad? There are other kids on the bus. The daughter has special needs. This kid was being picked on, and nobody said anything?

I know they’re not adults, but I grew up in the big bad 70’s and 80’s. There were lines even bullies didn’t cross. If a kid was clearly weaker than a bully or it went too far, other kids would get involved. Or at least tell someone.

There’s a lesson here for the bystanders on the bus. I know not every kid needs to get involved, but damn, no responsible kids felt compelled to tell the bullies to knock it off, or leave her alone?

I really don’t like adults stooping to this level but I can see Dad’s frustration. He’s handled the aftermath very well, though.

32

I love “victim” mom’s reaction.

33

I hate to break it to you, Hippy, but almost no kid (except the strongest in character and self-confidence) is going to step out of the crowd and speak up like that. Besides the fact that most school-age kids just want to just be part of the herd, there’s also the chance you will have then drawn the bully’s attention unto yourself. And, yes, someone should have at least told someone but even that’s hard at that age. As much I would love for someone to have stuck up for her, especially with her being a person with special needs, I can understand why no one did.

It was the adults (bus driver, school officials (if they knew about it), etc., who were responsible for protecting her and unfortunately, the one adult who did the right thing and the most for her – and what a parent should do for their child – ended up being arrested.*

The angry victim’s parent, on the other hand, is suffering from severe cognitive dissonance and definitely teaching exactly the wrong parental lesson. I wonder if she ever told her son that his behavior is wrong or, if he was not a participant in the bullying, asked whether he tried to help her.

  • I understand there were threats and cursing involved but still: the father seemed genuinely frustrated (like you said) by the situation and I can’t believe he would not have known he needed to try proper channels first and did so before coming onto the bus.
34

Granted, I’ve been out of the classroom for a while, but I taught in Fifth Ward, Houston in the late 90s. That’s about as tough as a community that’s out there. But I know some of our kids would have said something, either to the bully - because that’s one way of earning status among your peers, being a leader - or to an adult. Especially those students who were part of teams and so on. They belong to the biggest (and toughest) gangs in school, and those gangs usually have some direction from their coaches about the importance of being a leader, representing your school and community well, etc.

What galls me is that the kid has special needs. I think it’s a learning experience for all involved - say something. I would have a meeting with every single kid on the bus and talk about the importance of standing up for what is right. Being one kid against three miscreants is a bit much, but four or five kids together should shift the tide. We did it all the time as kids. When a bully picked on a kid that had a smart mouth or was always talking shit, nobody cared much. But if they picked on a kid with a disability - especially to the point that the dad says it got, with the condom on the head, other kids would put an end to it.

I’m not trying to romanticize the “good old days.” But there is something missing in character education that we have kids who do what the hell they want with no reprisal from their peers. But you have to teach kids how to use peer pressure in the right way. And I grant probably a lot of kids got on the bus, turned on their iPods, and ignored what was going on. But some should be feeling guilty for not doing something to help.

If I was to summarize what the “problem” is nowadays, it’s that we function in a world where authority is vested in one figure or person. The teacher, the cop, the bus driver. In reality, everyone on that bus has a responsibility to each other to make it from point A to point B. If you see something happening, don’t just say, “The bus driver will do something about it.” Make sure he/she knows about it. Tell a teacher at school. Or of course, tell the kids doing the fucked up stuff to knock it off.

35

I had a school bus bully. Bus driver wouldn’t do shit about it except tell me to sit further ahead on the bus so I wasn’t near him. Now, I don’t know how it is everywhere, but where I’m from, the further back you can sit the more popular you are. It went from little kids in the front to big kids in the back. I was a big kid, I wanted to sit in the back with my classmates, not with the little kids. The shit who was bugging me should have been the one to be kicked to the front. Well, that’s what you think when you’re 12, anyway.

I shut him up temporarily by hocking a huge ball of spit in his face one day. Bus driver said good for me and didn’t report it.

It didn’t really stop until he graduated though. But by that time I was a teenager and didn’t give a shit about him being a dickface.

The part that pissed me off the most was when people said I shouldn’t have spit at him because he had a minor learning disability. By that, I mean he stayed with his classmates and was never held back, but wasn’t exactly academically talented - they let him cruise through because he was slow but not handicapped. He damn well knew what bullying was and that it was wrong. So I’m guessing he’s spending the rest of his life on his daddy’s farm, except when his father dies he isn’t smart enough to run the farm so damned if I know what’ll happen there.

36

Agreed, 6,989,495,842 percent.

37

Dad overstepped the line when he shouted profanities and made physical threats. OTOH, I commend his admission of that and his acceptance of responsibility. I also understand his justifiable anger.

When GreenGirl was 11, she got a hand-drawn picture from a classmate of a figure (conveniently labeled as her) hanging by the neck. She was visibly upset by this and by her account, later corroberated by her teacher and the school principal, the only discipline was verbal chastizement and the paper was subsequently lost or destroyed.

Needless to say, I was incensed. But, when you’re the angriest is when you had better think hardest about what action you are going to take. Well, I went up to the school and read them the riot act. They thought I was “over-reacting”. “Let me get this straight. A graphic threat of physical violence, in the idiom of a terrorist organization with which our region has had decades of trouble and which intentionally targets Catholics, blacks and non-English speakers is made . . . against the only Creole girl in the school. You compound this by destroying the evidence of this threat and you think I’M over-reacting?”

They ended up calling the local police, whom I met out front with a smile and calm explanation of the situation, after speaking to the 911 dispatcher informing her that while I was extremely angry, I was in control and had neither verbally nor physically threatened anyone.

The officers sent out noted my agitation, but weren’t buying the school’s account of a rampage. But, at the same time, they told me that matters within the Catholic school system are difficult to get involved with, unless a grave crime has been committed.

It gets better . . . perhaps afraid I would sue (it had crossed my mind), the principal brought the perpetrator in to make an apology. He was pathetic. Obsequious little shit could barely stop sobbing long enough to speak. I felt sorry for him, but chose my words carefully.

“You gave that picture to my daughter? [described the picture]” I intentionally looked a little scruffy when I went in. Goatee, stubble on my cheeks. I shave my head regularly and was wearing jeans, work-boots and my army feild jacket. “Do you know where I got this jacket?” [he shrugs] “I got this when I was in the army. You know we have thousands of soldiers in the army and sometimes they are away from their families for years, far away fighting terrorists. Sometimes, some of us get hurt or even die fighting them and sometimes we kill them. But, we have terrorists here in our country, too. Sometimes they burn down churches. Sometimes they blow up schools. Sometimes they hate people because they don’t speak English, some of your friends’ mawmaws and pawpaws probably still speak French. Sometimes they hate people because they are Catholic or because they have brown skin. And sometimes they kill people by hanging them by their necks. The terrorists over here are just as bad as the terrorists over there. I swore to fight, die or even kill to protect our freedom against terrorists like that.”

Wait for it . . .

“You’re not a terrorist are you, son?”

38

I also grew up in the “bad 70’s and 80’s”, and in my experience the kids (and the teachers for that matter) were pretty much universally on the side of the bullies. Being noticed by the rest of the kids just means you are attacked by ten, twenty, thirty kids rather than one. Compassion and principle of any kind was unknown to them.

39

Yeah, because dirty words and hyperbolic “threats” are truly damaging to a little shit who has actually already committed acts of violence against a disabled little girl. Can’t dare scream and use a PG-13 word at a kid who has already hit your daughter, you might hurt his little innocent feelings!

Give me a Humvee sized break.

40

They put an open condom on her head? And they are still in school?!? That to me is an open threat of sexual violence. And why aren’t the cops investigating how a child got hold of a condom? 'Twere it me, I’d be having a long chat with CPS about the well-being of bully-boy.

And I might be guilty of the same thing that Dad did. I probably wouldn’t threaten death, but I’d do my damndest to scare the little bastards without crossing the line.