Children’s Ministry investigates Vancouver dad whose kids took the bus alone

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – How did good parenting become a crime? That is the question being asked by our colleagues at Maclean’s, who have been speaking with parents trying to teach their children to be independent in a fearful world.

One of them is Vancouver dad Adrian Crook, who has been dealing with an order from BC’s Ministry of Children and Family Development after letting his young children ride the bus alone from downtown to the North Shore.

“In the fall of 2015, I started to train my kids how to take the bus on their own. I rode the bus with them for about two years and it was a 45-minute trip from downtown Vancouver to North Van where their school is,” Crook tells NEWS 1130.

In 2017 he began to let his kids — aged six to 10 at the time — do it alone.

“They were on cellphones, they knew the route super well and they are all very capable. It was about a month before I got a call from the Ministry of Children and Family Development saying that someone had an issue with this.”

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Crook says there was no issue — the children had nothing wrong — but a passenger had expressed concern that they were alone.

After a two-month investigation, the Ministry determined the bus rides could not continue unsupervised and Crook had to sign a “safety plan,” essentially stating he would not leave any of his kids alone at home or on a bus.

As a result, he’s more afraid of losing his children to children’s aid these days than he ever was of an abductor on a bus.

“We’ve probably spent more time indoors this last fall and winter than ever before because the Ministry has said any kid under 10 can’t be left alone for any amount of time, anywhere, anytime. It means that I’ve got a problem if I even want to leave the house briefly. I have to take all the kids or not leave at all. It’s had quite an effect on our freedom,” he says.

Crook says he has to spend three hours riding the bus every school day. While he enjoys the time with his children, he says he shouldn’t have to escort them and they are missing out on other experiences.

“They lack other freedoms. For years, they have been able to cross the street and go to the corner store, which I’m looking at right now from my window, but they can’t do things like that any more. If one kid wanted to stay home for five minutes while I go to the store, I can’t leave that kid behind because that would be in violation of what the Ministry has said.”

Crook says he has received many words of support from other parents and the ruling is under internal review at the MCFD.

“They are in the process of refining their judgement but I think even they realize now that this is too broad a restriction to place on the unique circumstances of my family, which is a large family that has a lot of these capabilities that probably not every family has.”

Crook feels his children are in some ways more mature than many kids, having been carefully taught to be independent and look after each other.

“If I wasn’t comfortable at any point with their risk tolerance, it wouldn’t have been something I would do. It’s a misconception that I don’t worry about my kids. Worried doesn’t mean you don’t do something. If I was significantly concerned about their safety I wouldn’t do something,” he says.

“The first time they rode a leg of that bus route alone, I texted with them the whole way, tracked them and sweated the whole time but that’s just the nature of kids growing up. We all worry about our kids.”