How to Handle a Bully on the School Bus

My life passed before my eyes. When we lived in DC, our son shared a bus stop with a group of other elementary students, ranging in age from Pre-K – 5^th grade. They were a wonderful group, except for one child, a first grade boy who liked to bother my Kindergarten son, and other younger children on the bus. He will henceforth be known as “Bully”.

For the first few months it was just “boy stuff”: the bully would hit him, he hit him back. The kid would tattle to me about anything he saw Chris do while on the bus that day, trying to get Chris into trouble. But I never expected this child to almost kill my son in front of me!

Chris loves to be the first person on line. We would always tell him not to approach the school bus while it’s still moving (my husband knew a man in college who tripped and fell under a bus, as you can imagine it didn’t end well) so, this day Chris lined up early. As I watched, Bully elbowed my son with enough force to knock Chris off the curb as the bus was coming to a stop, fortunately not far enough to get hit.

The look of horror on the bus driver’s face could only be matched by mine, I’m sure! I screamed for both boys to get to the back of the line, and yelled at both of them — I just wanted Chris away from the bus. The driver told me he would call and report the incident. However, I was left unsure of what I needed to do next. “Shaking my fist” at Bully, while lecturing my Son on why to watch out what is going on around him, was only effective for the short term.

The more experienced Moms told me to go give the school a call. I called my husband, and we both decided to go to the school in person, as opposed to confronting Bully’s parents, wherever they might have been. This was the right choice. We were met by the Principal and Vice Principal. Both were wonderful with us. It turns out that the driver called the transportation company about what had happened, and asked that the Principal meet the bus in front of the school. 

My husband and I were relieved to see the incident was taken as seriously as it was. The only thing we didn’t understand was the “punishment” the boy received (he will have to get on the bus last every day and make sure everyone else gets on safely). What ever happened to losing a recess or two, at least - I’ll tell you that when it happened to me, it hit home. I knew that what I did wrong shouldn’t be repeated if I wanted to play with my friends.

I half expected the parents to make their son apologize the next day. Nope, I was wrong – they weren’t at the bus stop the next day. The Mom was with her son at the bus stop two days later. She did tell him to apologize. She also told me she has “5 Aggressive boys” … to which I really wanted to say “Well, guess you better give them an outlet for their aggression before they kill a classmate.” But I didn’t. I was gracious and listened. The mother was clueless, there would have been no point to argue or chastise her on how she was raising her kids.

Chris learned a valuable lesson: always be aware of your surroundings. This specific instance doesn’t matter much anymore, as he’s at the bottom of our driveway waiting for the bus, but it will serve him well in life.

There is nothing you can do about bullies and most of their mom’s will be clueless, so confronting the parent isn’t the best idea. I learned it was much better to go through the formal channels in place within the school framework. This is especially best in the younger grades when they really can’t fight all their own battles, and need to inform the school and let them handle the situation. Hopefully in the end you will be happy with the result.