Josiah’s teacher called me last week. Josiah has been having issues getting on the bus at the end of the day during summer school. Not every day. Some days he walks down the hall and walks up onto the bus. Most days though, he doesn’t.  I’ve been noticing it on my end too. Though the first couple of days went pretty smoothly, the last few have been rather difficult. I had hoped we had somehow glided past this bus issue. It was pretty rough the last few months. I had hoped it would all simply end on the last day of school.

Two weeks had passed between the end of the school year and the beginning of summer school. That’s enough time for Josiah to ‘forget’ about whatever it was that was bothering him, right? I mean, for him, shouldn’t it be like starting over? Shouldn’t riding the bus be a whole new, exciting experience? An enjoyable adventure?

Who am I kidding? I was just holding my breath. Hoping somehow, Josiah would revert to those days when he was younger and absolutely loved riding the bus. It was one of his most favorite things to do back then.  Not now. Now he stiffens when he sees the bus pull up. He protests. He punches himself in the head. He clings to me. He definitely does not like the bus anymore.

Last week the bus pulled up in front of our house to drop my son off. As soon as the doors opened up I could see Josiah was not doing well. He looked and sounded very angry. He nearly threw himself down the steps and bellowed all the way up the sidewalk into the house. Once inside he hurled himself to the ground and screamed. I tried to comfort him but he wanted nothing to do with me. He was furious about something. For the next 90 minutes Josiah was completely out of control.

He lashed out at everyone and anyone who came within a couple of feet. He swatted at us. He scratched. He kicked. He thrashed about. He was in a full blown rage. I have never seen him like that. It was very frustrating for his siblings. It was very upsetting for me. It was mostly, extremely difficult for Josiah.

Somehow we made it through. Eventually, after almost 90 minutes, I was able to pull Josiah up onto my lap. I blocked the punches to his head. His fists instead hit my hands, hard. I hugged him tightly in my arms. He seemed to relax a tiny bit. Whenever I loosened my grip on him, Josiah grabbed my arms and pressed them tightly around his body. He wanted me to apply deep pressure. He wanted bear hugs. I held him tightly like that for what seemed like a long time. I’m sure it was only about 5 minutes.

And then the strangest thing happened. Josiah stopped raging. As abruptly as it had all started, it was over. Josiah looked up at me and smiled. He pulled away from my embrace and started bouncing in my lap. He was happy. Whatever it was that caused him so much frustration was finished.

When Josiah’s teacher called last week, we agreed it made more sense for me to just drive Josiah to school from now on. We only live 1 mile away. Until we can figure out what is upsetting this boy and work to fix it, I am more than willing to be his chauffeur. So today I drove Josiah to school. He happily got out of the van, took my hand and walked to where his teachers were waiting. Josiah stood next to me while I talked very briefly with one of his teachers.

There was no resistance. There was no frustration. There was no drama. We had successfully avoided any bus trauma that might have occurred this morning. Phew. Suddenly I felt Josiah’s hand slip from mine. I turned as he walked away and shook my head in disbelief. Josiah was heading towards a bus.

I caught up with him just as he was about to climb aboard.