Who is in Control?

School buses are usually running their routes and picking up students when I leave for work and most times I can avoid any substantial delays on my trip to work.

If I compare things as they are now with what it was like when I was a kid in school things are a little different. My friends and I didn’t ride in a school bus even though we may have lived about a mile from the school.

We lived in a small town of about 7.000 people in upstate Pennsylvania and our school district encompassed my home town and some surrounding towns and townships. I don’t know if riding the school bus was ever an option for us but I don’t remember that we wanted to.

Granted societal and cultural changes have occurred since then that result in us being more protective of children and constantly aware of their location and circumstances.

But the one thing that I have noticed during the past few years is that the kids that I see at many different bus stops in many different school districts as I travel to work aren’t in a hurry to get to the bus stop. There may be many reasons for this but I am wondering if part of it has to do with the parents.

Have parents created this situation because they do so much for their kids that the kids know the parents are really not in charge or in control.

Two weeks ago when I left for work and I got to the end of my street, I encountered a school bus waiting to pick up some kids from my street. I had passed these kids along the way.

The kids were still about 60 – 70 yards from the bus stop and they weren’t in a hurry to get to the bus. They just kept walking at the same pace even though they could see the waiting school bus.

The bus driver had to stay because if she left without the kids she would have been suspended and or fired because the parents would have complained to the school. And by the way the kids know this. The kids know how to get their parents to do what they (the kids) want.

Am I being judgmental? Probably, but I also know that if the kids are in charge they won’t learn what they need to about life, respect, authority, responsibility and so much more.

Maybe it’s too late and maybe their parents never learned any of this stuff either. I would rather believe there is hope for change but it will take parents getting involved and making changes in their kids’ lives, the schools and society as a whole.