Bus Stop Blues

by bebu 24 Replies latest jw friends

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  DebraDoll

  bebu-Just hoping things have quieted down after your boy had a few days to reason things out a bit. I have been thinking of you, both!! Debs
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  Special K

  Hi Bebu

  you said

  I've got an idea. I will tell him that each month, I will drive him 1 time as grace if he misses the bus. He can choose to spend it the first time... or keep it in reserve in case he misses the bus when the weather is lousy (if the weather is REALLY cold and lousy, I'd drive him anyway!). This might set up a framework where he feels a little hope... and where he knows he still makes choices...

  This might become a nice ice breaker to get him to talk about the whole late for the bus thing.

  Make him up a couple cards. Monopoly size and give them to him but instead of "Get out of Jail Free" put on them "One Free Ride to School" (if you miss the bus).

  Hopefully, he has a good sense of humour and will laugh at your cards and might spark a conversation as to what would be a compromise of what he feels/you feel is fair and acceptable to you both.

  love

  Special K
• 

  Princess

  I missed this thread on Tuesday.

  Mulan said:

  I would have driven him. One of my kids would periodically miss the bus, in the hopes of getting out of school. I never suggested they walk, because I assumed they would never actually make it to school, so I would drive them, no matter how inconvenient, even if I had to get a sleeping infant up too early to do it.

  I confess, that's what I thought as I was reading Bebu's story. Mom would have driven us. I wonder though, if school was a mile away and I snarled and made a fight out of it, if you would have. You know that I would have gone to school and not skipped, so would you wake the baby and drive me? Or would you have put your foot down and made me walk? I think I would have been walking with the first snarl...

  My son is eight and his school is several miles away across major highways. He simply can't walk there. He knows if he misses the bus, I'll drive him. However, if he misses it and it's his fault, he loses all "screens" for the day...computer, TV, game boy. It's not worth it and he hurries. If it's my fault, well he gets a comfy ride to school that day...hasn't happened yet.
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  SixofNine

  :He simply can't walk there.
  
  
  Oh please. He's your and Steve's son; he should be able RUN there, barefoot, carrying 30lbs of Salmon on his back! :-D
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  hillbilly

  "who missed the bus?" ..."oh, thats what I thought you said...YOU missed the bus".... Deal with it kid...walk.

  You called the right play, Mom. Society is going downhill to in a handbasket at a rolling snowballs pace because we don't make folks accountable for THEIR actions... sounds like his ATTITUDE plays into your decision as well as his mistake, missing the bus in the first place... Sounds like he thinks he's "entitled" to get his goof fixed ... I'd make him walk or take the unexcused absence just on the attiutude alone.

  Parents are afraid to be firm nowdays... NO fear...firm works!

  Hill ( once made a teenaged kid pay me $15 for taking his trash class)