When 13-year-old Dillon Reeves noticed his Michigan school bus driver’s head drop forward and her hands fall from the steering wheel, he raced to the front of the bus, turned the wheel to avoid hitting a car at the intersection, and hit the brakes.
He noticed the driver was in trouble because he was apparently the only one of 60 kids on the bus not playing on a smartphone.
When he yelled, “Someone call 911” and the other kids said they couldn’t because they were filming him, he became frustrated.
“If you can film, you can call 911!” he retorted.
“It frustrated me so badly,” he told People magazine later. “They just needed to be mature and do what’s right.”
Role of Parents
The reason Dillon knew what to do was because his father had taught him how to drive Go-karts and a golf cart on family camping trips, and a car in a parking lot.
“He could probably drive one of the cars out of here and be okay,” his father Steve said during a news conference.
The reason he noticed the bus driver—who has since become his friend—was in trouble was because he didn’t have a cellphone.
“What else are you going to do when you don’t have a phone?” his father told CBS News.
“You’re going to look at people, you’re going to notice stuff. You’re going to look out the window. It’s a very powerful lesson, maybe a change-the-world kind of lesson,” he added.
Asked how he felt that his parents even now don’t plan to get him a cellphone any time soon, Dillon said, “Whatever. My parents are old school.”
Role of Family
Sometimes it’s hard for parents to swim against the tide and do what’s best for their child. But it’s apparent that young Dillon’s parents didn’t just deny him what every other kid had. They also provided alternative activities, doing things together as a family, like camping and early driving lessons.
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