Yesterday afternoon when I was driving the elementary school kids home a conflict arose between a couple of boys. I didn’t see what happened, I didn’t hear what happened, I just heard two of the kids calling out to me that one of the other kids was “bothering” them. So I told the “accused” kid to come sit up closer to the front of the bus in an empty seat, figuring that the best thing to do was to simply separate the kids. I didn’t scold anyone, I didn’t ask any questions, I simply told the one kid to move. I figured moving one kid was easier than moving two kids, so that is what I did.
Imagine my surprise when I finished my run and got back to the school to see an angry parent waiting for me, confronting me about how I had “abused” her kid by “yelling” and “scolding” him and “not even listening to his side of the story.” I told her all I did was tell the kid to move to an empty seat, and didn’t yell at anyone. She got really pushy and insisted that I must have been abusive because her son came home crying and he said that I was always mean and always yelling at him. Now to be honest, I don’t even remember ever seeing that kid before, and I’m sure I’ve never yelled at him! I suggested that she have the school principal pull the bus’s video tape and watch it so she could see for herself what happened. She got all huffy and said “I will.”
Well…. long story short, that was yesterday, and I never heard back from anyone that I’m in any kind of trouble, so I guess the parent saw that I simply told the kid to move and that her kid is over-sensitive and has an over-active imagination!