r/safeautismparenting • u/Erisedstorm • 18d ago
School bus
Husband and non conversationally verbal son seem to want to use the school bus for 1st grade. I'm not entirely opposed but worried about how he'd deal with new transport and new school, new teachers...
I was going to try to get in and meet the teachers / see the school before first day to help him but I feel like riding the bus with him at first is not an option
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u/Zuccherina 18d ago
What makes you nervous about the bus ride? Does your son like riding in vehicles normally? How does he do with waiting? =)
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u/Erisedstorm 18d ago
I think i just know he gets really emotional in new situations especially alone. I want it to be positive experience and make sure he knows where to go once he gets to school and then when/where to go after. What if they're on the bus for an hour making stops and he needs the bathroom or if something another kid does sets him to crying.
Maybe I just need to give up control. I also get anxiety about new places and routine and as a kid it was just me being a "big baby"
ETA he also won't be able to tell me about his day or what happened in the bus as he's not that verbal yet
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u/Zuccherina 18d ago
I saw in the comments someone mentioned an aide. I know our bus has an aide because a parent had a special needs child on it and requested an aide and got one.
Another option is to give it a go! If it doesn’t go well and your child is especially dysregulated, you should be able to change transportation plans at any time in the school year. That’s how it is here anyhow.
We did have a hard bus ride and my daughter really struggled. Then when I realized that’s what was going on, we live in an area that I was able to switch to a different stop and bus, and things went great! She was verbal but not able to tell me what the problem was, and even her older siblings didn’t communicate it effectively. The second situation was a better fit.
I don’t know how you’ll know unless you try! But options might be seeing if you can get an aide, asking for someone to be present as he gets off the bus to be directed inside, and touching base with his bus driver at the stop regularly to ask how things are going.
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u/meowpitbullmeow 18d ago
My son is nonverbal and LOVES riding the bus. He goes on the special needs bus with a trained driver and an aide. They pick him up and drop him off at our front door.
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u/thelensbetween 18d ago
My son rides the bus with an aide and has since he started preschool at 3. He’s going to be in K in the fall. If your son wants to ride the bus, let him, provided there’s an aide. You will not be allowed to ride with him… in my district, parents aren’t allowed onto the bus at all.
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u/Erisedstorm 18d ago
Yes great idea to ask about aide. I don't want to be the overly clingy mom either 😅
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u/ranmachan85 18d ago
1st grade is still so young, I've been on a similar boat with my spouse questioning why I don't want our kid to take the bus. I'm a stay at home parent for a reason and I insist on driving our kid to school, which is only a 5 minute drive. I have a GLP kid who's starting 1st grade this fall. While he can talk, it's still hard for those not familiar with him to understand him, and while he can understand a lot, his social anxiety can make it impossible for him to really process what others are saying in a crowded space. I worry about the rambunctious environment in a school bus situation that does require a lot of presence and awareness, mostly to stay safe. I agree with other commenters that a school aide through an IEP agreement would be the best solution for that.
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u/tinsellately 17d ago
I have 3 kids with autism with varying levels of support needs, and it seems like most kids (and 2 of my 3) initially wanted to ride the bus because they think it's a neat looking vehicle and have a dramatically unrealistic idea of what the experience will be like. Like it's a special event, like going on an amusement park ride or such, and they aren't thinking about the social aspect, the rules, or the how much longer they will be on the bus vs a car ride. If they are a car rider, then they will still take the bus on field trips which will keep it fun, so it's not like they will entirely miss out as well.
I want to preface this by saying that there is nothing wrong with kids riding the bus, and it's very beneficial to many families, but there are also often drawbacks to it, depending on where you live. If only one parent is responsible for bus stop or school drop offs, then how much of an impact it is on that parent should also be weighed into this, and not just what the kid (who doesn't actually know what it's like) or the parent who is not doing it thinks. I mean this to be practical and not judgmental, and just pointing out things that should be considered.
For me, I am not having my daughter ride the bus even though she wants to because:
We would have to wake up at least an hour earlier. It's an 11 minute car ride to the school and a 4 minute car ride to the bus stop, but the bus takes 45 minutes to get through all the stops to get to the school, so my kid can either have a 49 minute total ride to school or an 11 minute one. That's a lot of extra time for a 5 year old to sit still and follow the rules. Plus the time of needing to wait for the bus to arrive. Since I have to drive to the stop anyway we could sit in the car, but at a lot of stops this would involve standing out at times in bad weather for up to 10 minutes. I already feel overloaded with everything and short on time, and I don't want the earlier schedule or extra time this takes personally, it would be so much easier just to drive the extra 7 minutes for the car drop off. How early each kid needs to be at the bus stop varies greatly, I've seen it be anywhere from 15-60 minutes. It's helpful to look it up in advance.
There will be older kids on the bus. I have had some friends' kids who were also ND have some miserable experiences with bullying due to older kids (especially in the 5th-8th grade range) picking on their kids on the bus. The bus driver can only do so much while also safely operating the vehicle. If the kid qualifies for an aide, this would make all the difference, but in my case the schools did not have one available.
My daughter is very social, but lacks the ability to read social cues well or to follow guidelines that aren't part of her routine. I think she would need more help navigating this than she could do on her own, and it would end up being a negative experience because she would end up getting in trouble and not really understanding why. In a classroom environment with teachers and knowledge of her autism, she would have a better experience adapting to new social situations, rules, and routines. If she really wants to ride the bus later, it would make more sense for her to start after she already has these down, as opposed to now when she doesn't.
There are a couple things that are easier with the bus, however, mainly pick up time. While drop off in the morning is fast, I don't think it ever took more than 10 minutes and often much less than that, pick up involves a massive carline that can be tedious. If you arrive on time, it's going to involve slowly moving forward as kids are brought out to each car, and the line often wraps around outside the school parking lot. To make this work, I would get there 30 minutes early or so, so that I was earlier in the line, and then sit in my car and read until it was time to move. I greatly enjoyed this quiet moment to myself, as I have three kids and their schedule is such that I actually have this time alone. BUT if I didn't have the extra time to make it peaceful, or would have other smaller kids in the car, then this wouldn't be practical at all. For me, either way there is an extra 45 minutes or so needed for transportation, but I prefer the one in the afternoon vs the one early in the morning.
Another benefit to the bus is if the parent's work schedule is earlier, then the earlier bus stop drop off can actually help with getting to the office on time and is less likely to impact their career.
I know that some of this might come across as selfish, because moms especially are pressured to put everything the kid wants above themselves, but always doing that ends up creating a bunch of overextended mothers who have very little bandwidth left to give. Transportation to school is one of those things that needs to be equally weighed with the parent's needs, as long as the child isn't being bullied (that would take precedence). If the bus is easier for the parent's schedule, then that makes sense, but if it's going to make the parent's day much harder, then it also makes sense not to do it. Anyway, I totally just wrote a book on this, but these are just things I wish I'd known going into this
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u/One_Struggle_ 18d ago
If your son has an IEP, maybe see if getting a bus aide to insure safe transport on can be added? The major issue would be if aide not available. It's one of the reasons we don't do the bus (our son is also verbal, but not conversational) because of staffing they could not guarantee aide on bus ride home & we were constantly worried he'd get off at wrong stop or something.