re: 5 year old boy asks for help after school bus makes wrong stop in 105-degree heat:

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"My literal worst nightmare happened," she said

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Horrible situation, glad the kid ended up okay, but goddamn if this is her worst nightmare she has had the softest life out there.

No you fricking didn't. You probably couldn't even read or tie your own fricking shoes.

Scary. A 5-year-old is pretty young, but you would be surprised how many late elementary and middle school-aged kids don’t know their address or their parents’ phone number. In some cases it’s because both change frequently, but if you can, teach your kids. Also, tell them to always ask a woman for help if lost. Less likely to be a creep.

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I knew how to get to my house as a 5 year old from any starting spot in town.

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When I was in the first grade a friend from school walked to my house from a few blocks away but got lost on the way back home. This was the mid 1980s. It happens.

Why did the kids get off the bus? I'm curious to the FULL story here? People say 5 and immediately assume they are dumb and ignorant but they are smart enough, I'm surprised the kids got off the bus without telling the bus driver they were not at the right stop?

Given all the above, it was the first couple of days of school potentially so who knows?

Its a pretty unfortunate start to the story though because most of the time you tell your kids not to talk to strangers or go to strange houses. They had no choice here.

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The tik tok selfie video from the mom saying "ugh! my literal worst nightmare happened yesterday..." makes it even worse

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Exactly.

Was she "literally shaking as she typed this"?

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Damn that's tough to watch.

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Maybe it’s having a lil baw myself but there is something that shakes me up big seeing a little boy in palpable fear. Heartbreaking.

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This is why as soon as I was able to talk, my parents made damn sure I had my address and phone number memorized

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This. Do they not do this?

I mentioned this the other day, where I live the school busses don't have numbers anymore, they are an animal and color. So where the number would go on a school bus, its a picture of like.. A red squirrel or green rabbit. Evidently its because kids know their colors and are familiar with animals so it is supposed to make sure they don't get on the wrong bus.

I remember going to preschool and knowing my home phone number and home address and to call 911 for the police.

And I also feel like its kind of sad that these stories become national/international news because of the internet.

There were a lot of things that I think back to that could have easily become a huge story when I was younger. They happened then everyone moved on..

If this happened when I was in school you would get picked on about it from kindergarten to HS "remember when you were on camera crying cause you didn't know where you lived?"

We used my wife’s phone number as the iPad unlock code for the kids. This way they memorized at least one of our numbers

My parents were nuts.
We lived in Bossier when I started school at 5 years old(Christ the King).We lived about 4 blocks away but had to cross Barksdale Blvd.
Few days before school started my mother walked me to school to show me the way and how to cross with the traffic light.
She took me the first day but after that I walked everyday unless it was raining.
I turned 6 in Dec.
No way I would let a 5 or 6 y o walk that far and cross a busy street.