Immediately after the bus moved off after allowing passengers to alight at a bus stop, the boy quickly stood up and pressed the bell.

Thinking that the boy wanted to alight, the bus driver, who is in his early 50s, stopped the bus.

However, the boy remained standing at the exit.

The driver, who raised his voice to ensure that he could be heard, then asked him whether he wanted to alight. The boy replied that he actually wanted to get off at the next stop.

Upon getting down at the bus stop, the boy turned back and showed his middle figure to the driver, whom he thought had offended him. As a young boy, he may or may not know what his hand gesture meant.

Recently, bus operators have taken measures to ensure that their drivers are not physically or verbally abused by unreasonable passengers. It appears that children have no respect for adults nowadays and bus drivers could be abused by students as well.

When driving on the roads, it is common to see adults showing the middle figure to other motorists to express their displeasure. Adults, who are not emotionally intelligent enough and who are not aware of other better ways to manifest their anger, would resort to this approach when they are offended in one way or another. As a result, children are badly influenced by these adults.

Therefore, in order to cultivate the next generation of young children with good behaviour, parents or adults should behave themselves and set a good example.

Otherwise, they may receive the offensive hand gesture from young students one day.

Goh Kian Huat