agonyaunt | Care & Feeding: Do Bullies Deserve Favors?

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Care & Feeding: Do Bullies Deserve Favors?

Dear Care and Feeding,

My son Anthony is in seventh grade and has been friends with Liam since fourth grade. They go to the same school. Liam has always seemed like a nice kid. I drive Anthony to and from school, while Liam takes the bus. Due to bullying a disabled boy on his bus, Liam was suspended from school for several days and is not allowed to ride the school bus again until January. (Another mutual friend who rides the same bus told an adult at school what was happening, but Anthony tells me that Liam doesn’t know who told.)

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I’m disturbed by what Liam did and have talked about it with Anthony. He understands how wrong Liam’s actions were. We’ve talked about carefully choosing what kind of people we associate with, and also how people who do bad things can change and grow. I’m trying to guide him without outright telling him what to do (I know how that can backfire with teens). I think I’m striking an okay balance there.

But here is my dilemma: Liam’s mom asked if he could carpool with us while he is suspended from the bus. She is a single mom with a rigid work schedule, and she cannot drive him herself. She sounded panicked about what to do. As a fellow single mom, I’m sympathetic to how hard it is. Carpooling would only add about 30 minutes total to our daily driving time, and if she needed me to do this for some other reason, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes. But she’s in this position because her son did something very cruel. Part of me thinks, “I’m not the one who raised a kid who bullied a disabled kid. Why should I be at all inconvenienced by this?” And while I’m not forbidding Anthony from having any contact with Liam, I’m not thrilled about the idea of them spending extra time together every day either. On the other hand, maybe spending more time with Anthony will have a good influence on Liam.

What should I do?

—Carpool Conundrum

Dear Carpool Conundrum,

Coming from someone who was bullied mercilessly in middle school, it takes a ton of effort for me to show any compassion towards bullies—but I’ll try.

You’re absolutely right—you shouldn’t have to be inconvenienced due to another kid’s bad behavior. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t blame you one bit if you shrugged your shoulders and said, “Sorry, but Liam has to find another way to get to school, because I’m not doing it,” but that’s probably because of the personal trauma I have from what I endured back in the day.

Assuming you’re not as heavy-handed as I tend to be in these situations, you should consider a couple of important things before agreeing to give Liam a lift to school.

First, does Liam feel any remorse for what he did? You mentioned that Anthony understands how wrong Liam’s actions were, but how does Liam feel? Is he upset that he said something hurtful to another kid or is he upset that someone snitched on him resulting in his suspension? If he’s truly sorry, then I think it’s fine to offer a temporary carpool (only if you want to, of course). If he’s playing the victim role or complaining that people are too sensitive nowadays, then I wouldn’t let him anywhere near my kid. For example, if one of my daughter’s friends said something racist to another child, and didn’t take personal responsibility for it, I can promise you that kid would not be allowed in my car or home.

Second, is this part of a pattern of behavior for Liam? Ask Anthony if he has witnessed this type of behavior from him before. If the answer is yes, then I wouldn’t agree to give him a ride to school. I mean, being remorseful is nice and all, but if he’s regularly tormenting kids, then he clearly has a problem that must be addressed.

A big part of childhood and life is making mistakes, and if this was an isolated incident that he truly feels awful about, then I think you could lend a hand. If that’s not the case, then I wouldn’t even entertain the thought of helping out. Redemption should be earned, not assumed—especially for bullies.

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I'm not sure LW would be doing a favor for Liam. This sounds more like a favor for his mom.

And honestly, all children, no matter how horrible, have a right to attend school and get an education. Seriously, what *is* the alternative if LW says no? That's what my answer would hinge on. If there actually is no feasible way to get him to school, then what's left?

Not that I'm at all condoning his behavior, whatever it was, but... if the area they live isn't really set up for this kid to be able to independently get to and from school, then somebody must take him.

Yeah, that was my basic conclusion. Are there any other car-commuters? Can he feasibly ride a bike or something? Is there a public transit option? Etc.

Yeah, fellow bullied kid here, my instinct is to say no — but if the alternative is MOM losing her job, that shifts the calculus.

And whether Liam is remorseful is pretty damn important. “Who snitched?” doesn’t bode well.

Yeah, in this situation I'm more concerned about Liam's mother. Sure, maybe Liam's a bully because of a failure on her part, but kids have agency and are easily capable of making choices their parents wouldn't approve of. And even if it's an issue with her parenting or her situation, adding more problems to her life isn't going to make her a better parent.

tbh at the age of these kids, if it's new behavior from Liam, I suspect that mom's rigid work schedule and consequent lack of ability to effectively monitor Liam's online time is extremely relevant: it's extremely easy to end up at nasty content from looking up innocent content, and then the algorithms will drag you down that path as far as they can. (my "favorite" was the time i looked up how to diy a cucumber frame and started getting recommended Nazi stuff. at least it provides an instructive example for my kids.)

this is a seventh grader, not an adult, and may well be a seventh grader who needs more active parenting than his mother can provide when she has to be concerned with making sure that he has, you know, food and shelter.

in LW's place I would probably offer to take Liam after school until mom can pick him up, and I'd make sure he got the same talks my kids get about online safety and algorithmic content and the youtube to Nazi pipeline.

again. this is a CHILD. treating a child who has done something very wrong with compassion, and modeling compassion without excusing the behavior for your own child? Probably a good idea.

This.

Depending on the school district and its rules, they may not allow kids to get to and from school independently, e.g. by walking or riding a bike, and they must either take the bus or travel with a designated adult. This is an outgrowth of the mentality that "All kids must be under supervision of an adult 24x7x365". "Stranger danger" and "milk carton mania" and all that, coupled with the school district's fear of liability should something happen.

Back in the early 2000s I knew someone at work who had a kid in a school district in a large-ish town local to the Boston area. Said kid could have cut through his back yard and through a couple of neighbors' back yards and walked home in five or ten minutes ... but an adult had to get him from school, with a car.

Mind-bogglingly stupid, I know, but them's the rules, some places.

Depending on the school district and its rules, they may not allow kids to get to and from school independently, e.g. by walking or riding a bike, and they must either take the bus or travel with a designated adult.

I am certain that this is not legally enforceable. If you say "No", and you're not in violation of an actual law, what are they really going to do?

Maybe not, but if the school tries to enforce this, pushing back may take a lot more resources than many/most parents have.

Quite honestly, I've always found ignoring stupid rules that I don't want to follow and that are not legally binding anyway to be extremely effective and low-resource. It's not like child services is going to actually care about a middle schooler walking to school, and that's about the only thing the school could do that has any teeth at all. (I do understand that there's a lot of baked-in racism and classism in child services, gosh yes, but they still don't have the resources to harass parents of teenagers over petty garbage. If experience of my neighbors and what I read in the news is typical, that's the sort of thing you might see elementary school and younger.) They really don't have any authority over what your child does outside of school hours, and any escalation on their part risks revealing that to the whole class.

But this conversation presumes that it actually *is* reasonable for this kid to walk to school, which it might not be. Because civic infrastructure in most of the USA sucks.

Call CPS or the police and assert that a kid is in danger. Happens all the time even without violations of actual laws.

In my experience from talking to my mostly minority-and-poor neighbors, that sort of thing dries up after elementary. There's just no money to harass parents for letting their teenagers go outside.

They can refuse to let the child leave. Schools have all kinds of guidelines and rules under which a teacher/other school personnel will just keep a child in a classroom/in the office until everyone has to leave. At that point, they might very well call one or another authority.

It's all very well to say, "They can't enforce that rule," but if your answer is making a kid who is already in trouble just walk out in defiance of rules the parent has certainly been informed of, I don't see that ending well at ALL.

It's a middle school. How small do you think it is that they can actually watch every child as they leave?

I suppose small schools do exist. I would have very much liked to have found a school within a reasonable commute distance with a student population under 1000 when the niblings were in middle school.

There is still monitoring going on. And I doubt a kid who's on bus suspension for bullying is under less monitoring.

So we're still back to, "Breaking the rules while the kid is already on disciplinary measures is not going to end well for anyone." It only takes one teacher/staff/admin seeing him just walking away from the school to start things moving. I mean, you are basically saying, "that's a stupid rule, so just ignore it," right? This isn't about the mother going in and challenging the rules (which, good luck, lady, especially right now). This is telling a child who is, again, already under disciplinary status to just break the rules.

my children's middle school does not let children leave the supervised congregation points until their bus arrives or a pickup arrives, unless the child has a standing dismissal order allowing them to walk home unaccompanied.

it's not a small school, but as it turns out, it's not very hard to confine children in a room with a single adult monitoring the door.

It's been 23 years since I was in middle school and 12 years since my youngest sister was, but our town had all the kids wait for the bus in their homeroom, a select group of buses would be called at a time, and kids who were being picked up were released last. It was a process.

The school tried to prevent me and my friends from walking to the playground at the public park next door to the school to wait for our parents (they came half an hour later to let us play) in the 1990s. We weren't even at the school anymore and it was agreed with all our parents, but the administration people were walking to the park to tell us we couldn't rollerskate because it wasn't safe for 12 year olds. Our parents also thought giving in was easier though, and they told the principal one of them would pick us up and be responsible for us at all times. 🙄 At the time I was very angry that they didn't argue the point, but in retrospect I can see they might have been wiser.

All I can say is that I started on passive noncompliance by middle school, and while it may have occasionally frustrated my mother I have long since discovered that the vast majority of threats are ultimately hollow. People just can't be bothered to actually follow through on what they say they'll follow through on, especially if it involves dragging other people into their nonsense.

Also, nobody quite knows how to respond when they get a cheerful "Oh, no thank you!" in response to some asinine "request".

+1

Also, LW, the extra time your son is spending with Liam will be time under your direct supervision. It'll be a good chance to get a better idea of whether you actually do want your son to keep spending time with him.

Anyway, nobody said you had to make Liam's commute with you *fun*; make "I can't risk getting suspended from the bus again because then I'd be stuck in a car with LW *even more*" part of his motivation to improve. Spend the whole time making it clear how disappointed in him you are, or play the worst old people music you have in your collection, or the audiobook of "The 57 Bus", or whatever else you can think of to make sure he's counting down until he's allowed to get away from you. (Then threaten him that you're happy to do it again if he can't learn to be a civil person. As a bonus, this will also motivate your kid to lean on him to not make him go through that again.)

Edited 2022-10-18 21:12 (UTC)

OMG! Someone else who knows The 57 Bus!!! My kid is actually going to that school right now and ... taking the 57 bus to get there (really, taking exactly the same route that Sasha did, though I don't know how close we are to where Sasha lived at the time).

Coming at it from another angle, personally, as someone who had a bully who commuted with me, the bully was way more of a problem in school than in the car. (They're not going to be obvious about that shit in the car, generally.) So I don't have an issue with *that* part. And anyway, she says they're friends, though I'm thinking maybe Liam may have been changing a bit.

Anyway. *If* the half hour isn't a big deal for the LW, I'd do it. It's not like it's some kind of reward. And the kid has a right to an education.

Anthony's mom may also want to have a chat with Anthony about what kind of young man Liam is turning into, not getting drawn into bullying behavior himself, and the fact that continuing to be a close friend of someone who does horrible things means that to some extent you condone their actions even if you don't participate in them. "Think about the kind of of people you want to surround yourself with, and how that reflects on you."

Not to mention the tendency of people who are responsible for disciplinary proceedings in school settings to engage in things like guilt by association and group punishments and such. Anthony may find himself inside a circle of people assumed to be guilty even if he didn't do anything.

Edited 2022-10-18 18:34 (UTC)

In a lot of countries, the mother could face fines if the kid doesn't get to school on time. I think this is a favour for the mother, not the bully. Do the thing, LW, unless you know anything to the detriment of the mother (e.g. complaints from her about the unfairness of the punishment). It isn't a sign you approve of the kid's behaviour.

Also, go this school for dealing with bullying on the school bus. My school's response was "he needs to come to school somehow, if you're uncomfortable you should get your parents to bring you in the car". :grimacing-emoji:

yeah I am torn about this bc the bully does need to go to school. And if LW can feasibly do it as a help to the bully's mom I can see this being a help for her. But I also see it as something that looks like (to other families) as condoning what the bully did. And also associating LW's kid with the bully. Can the kid walk or take public transit? maybe. maybe not. (oof I remember the over an hour rides on the bus of my youth. and I know my family now drops kids off bc 20 mins driving is less time than the hour bus ride) And while I am not a fan of Lyft or Uber, perhaps that is also an option for the bully. But maybe it isn't.

If I was LW and was friends with the mom, I would ask her about how she is handling the bullying on her end. Not in a judgmental way, but to see if there are repercussions from home. Bc if this kid wasn't getting repercussions and the mom was all "boys will be boys" about it I would NOT feel comfortable helping her out. But if there were consequences and all she needed was the bully to get to school bc of her job I probably would help her out.

I'm generally in agreement with what other folks have said, but I also want to point out that this strikes me as a poorly thought-out punishment. Liam still has to go to school! Not allowing him to take the bus is only putting a major burden on his family.

Though I do want to note that I think LW would be justified in refusing: It may be 30 added minutes per day, but that adds up to 2.5 hours per week, ten hours per month, and if we say there are two months of school (half of October, all of November, and half of December) left between now and January, LW would be taking on twenty extra hours of driving if she drives Liam to and from school every day until he's allowed back on the bus. It might be kind of LW to help out Liam's mom, for the reasons many people here have brought up, but my sense is that it exceeds the general scope of things people are expected to do for kids' classmates' parents.

It may not be meant as a punishment so much as protection for the kid he was bullying. "If you make the bus unsafe for other kids, you can't ride the bus" isn't as much a punishment as a direct consequence.

Oh, for sure.

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Care & Feeding: Do Bullies Deserve Favors?

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