Most of us remember riding a school bus at one time or another. You’d pull a girl’s hair in the seat in front of you or poke a seatmate. You’d call someone a name or tease them. It’s tough for a kid riding a bus to keep quiet and enjoy the ride.

I even remember a sixth-grade field trip to the state capitol when a classmate poured an entire can of Pepsi over a girl’s head. The sugar in the soda soon gelled, causing her hair to become sticky. Of course, temptation got the better of us and we threw bits of paper and gum wrappers at her head to see which ones would stick to her hair.

Yeah, we were an inquisitive bunch.

But having a fellow rider offer you a powerful narcotic like methadone in pill form borders on the strange. The fact that nine girls decided it was a good idea to actually swallow those pills is even more bizarre.

Reaction to this incident was pretty typical and, as usual, we want to blame someone.

One “It’s Your Call” submission blamed St. Joseph School Superintendent Melody Smith for choosing the wrong principal at Spring Garden. That’s preposterous. The caller obviously missed the point that the first pill-passing happened on the bus before the kids even got to the school.

Also, the newsroom took a call last week from readers who wanted to know why the bus driver didn’t do anything.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t tell what’s going in the back seat of my own car, let alone what a group of boisterous kids seated several feet behind me are doing. I’m not sure that you want the driver’s attention focused so tightly on the inside of the bus that they are able to detect one student passing a bunch of pills to another. Sure, if kids are fighting or out of their seat, then stop the bus as soon as possible and handle the situation. But, I feel better if most of the bus driver’s attention is focused on guiding several tons of metal around potholes and other vehicles.

So, who’s left?

Ah yes, the parents.

I’m sure these girls’ parents have been roundly criticized for not giving them enough common sense or moral direction to decline the offer of strange pills, even from a familiar face.

I can just hear it: “What are their parents thinking? Do these kids have any discipline at all? Well, that’s what happens when mom and dad are divorced and the kids are left to fend for themselves.”

Everybody would agree that kids especially should be taught to never take medication that isn’t theirs. This situation could have played much worse than it did. Methadone is a powerful drug. Let’s say one of those kids decided to take two or even three pills. The results could have been deadly. According to a Web site about health topics, www.healthoma.com, a single day’s dosage of 50 to 100 mg can be deadly to someone who has never taken the drug.

This was a close call.

The problem is that it’s never quite as simple as just blaming the parents. Kids do stupid stuff all the time when their parents aren’t around. We all remember that first sip of beer we sneaked or the first time we picked up a smoldering cigarette and took a puff. I remember the first time I tried smokeless tobacco. I wedged a pinch behind my lower lip, and 20 minutes later I was sweating, sick and vomiting.

Does that mean we were raised by bad parents?

Nope.

As a parent, you try to keep your kids safe and healthy. You try to help them avoid stupid mistakes. But unless you’re going to follow your kids around 24 hours a day, seven days a week, some kids (maybe even yours) will reach for that beer, try that smoke or even ride their bike over a 5-foot ramp. There’s not much you can do except try to drill some common sense into them and hope nothing gets permanently damaged.

The real concern for parents is that the stakes are much higher today than they were decades ago. The effects of popping a methadone pill are far more severe than that of sipping a Budweiser or taking a drag from a Marlboro. And, they’re a quantum leap above pouring a can of Pepsi over someone’s head.

Yes, you can blame the parents. But maybe you’ll be a little less critical of them the next time your kid does something dumb.