Routine acts come loaded with lessons for the keiki

In some neighborhoods, children ride their bikes to school, their book bags stuffed into handlebar baskets or hanging low on their backs. They get to campus and pile up the pink and black and racing-striped two-wheelers along the side of the main building where the bikes are safe all day. The kids come to retrieve them after the last bell and sweetly pedal home with their siblings and friends like a TV show set in the ’50s.

In some neighborhoods, kids walk to school, those oversized backpacks bobbing on their backs like the shells of Galapagos tortoises. Crossing guards wearing vests of yellow and orange make sure they safely pass from one side of the street to the other. Kids who are a little bit older, maybe sixth grade and up, walk in packs and carry Slurpees from the nearby 7-Eleven, the breakfast of middle school champions. And at the end of the day, they walk home in groups, in herds, in large, loud jumbles of silliness, letting lose the pressures of the day as they trudge under the hot afternoon sun. Maybe Popo comes to school at the end of the day to escort the little kids home. Maybe Grandpa is waiting there with manapua money and encouraging words.

Some kids get to school on the bus, which is always depicted in film and literature as a hothouse of festering bullying and extreme social angst.

And at some schools, in some neighborhoods, parents queue up in their cars to drop off and pick up.

Of the above options, the auto line drop-off is the most fraught and the least civil.

A cursory Google search reveals a multitude of websites, news articles and blog posts decrying outrageous parent behavior in the morning drive-through drop-offs. Some parents speed. Some pass on the right, too impatient or self-important to wait behind the one parent who is waiting for the old lady crossing guard to give the OK sign. Some parents are texting or yakking on the phone or swilling their fancy coffee. And many, many, decide that the end justifies the means and will break any rule, law or code of conduct to get their kid to campus before the tardy bell.

I’ve seen it firsthand. I’ll bet you have, too.

When it’s 10 minutes to 8, you’d best be off the streets anywhere in a school zone because all bets are off. Pedestrians can stand at the ready at crosswalks for five minutes while cars zoom past. If a driver with a conscience does stop for pedestrians crossing the street, there’s always someone behind them ready and willing to swoop past on the right and speed off.

There are parents who stop in the drop-off lane, put their cars in park, have every door of the SUV open including the hatchback, and unload 20 bags, backpacks and sports duffels for their child. If the driver has to get out of the car, the driver should park in the parking lot. That’s a general rule.

There are parents who decide to have THE BIG TALK or THE BIG SCREAM right there in the drop-off lane with everybody watching and listening. This helps no one. The screaming parent doesn’t feel better. The screaming parent’s kid doesn’t do better. The parents waiting behind the screaming parent are all judging, even if they know they’ve done it, too. Scream at your kids at home, or at least wait until you’re out of earshot. That’s a good rule, too.

It’s easy to forget, when you’re desperately trying to get your kids to school on time and yourself to work on time, that the little darlings’ education starts before they get to the classroom. They’re watching. And it’s easy to forget that the parent you just rudely cut off in the morning auto queue may be assigned as your co-chair for the school’s It’s A Small World fundraiser. They’re watching, too.

Reach Lee Cataluna at 529-4315 or lcataluna@staradvertiser.com.