When 12-year-old boy in Sydney was told he and his family weren’t going to Bali, he refused to accept it.
Taking matters into his own hands, the boy called Drew – whose story is being told on tonight’s program of A Current Affair – used his parents’ credit card to book plane tickets for himself, as well as accommodation, and travelled to Bali alone on a four day “adventure”.
Now, his mother, Emma, is looking for answers, saying she’s “shocked and disgusted” at the airlines involved.
Admittedly, the level of premeditation in Drew’s actions is astounding.
He researched the airlines that permit 12-year-olds to travel alone. He packed his school bag on the morning of his flight, telling his parents he was going to school as usual. Instead, he used his scooter to get to the station to catch a train to the airport.
Before this, he had persuaded his grandmother into giving him his passport and had used the self-check in service to ensure he wouldn’t see any airline staff before actually boarding the plane.
“There’s no emotion to feel what we felt when we found out that he’d left overseas,” Emma tells A Current Affair, adding her son “just doesn’t like the word ‘no'”.
“That’s what I got, a kid in Indonesia,” she said.
Top Comments
A kid that won’t obey the word “no” can be diagnosed with opposition defiance disorder.
Is it rude to wonder how parents with this type of thinking and accountability (the airlines will stop my child doing anything wrong, and that’s it!), managed to produce such an obvious genius??
I’m gonna say “no” to punishing him, “yes” to therapy (for all!!) so that they can all learn to communicate better and learn the whole responsibility thing...and then get this kid into a gifted & talented program, ASAP. Future Nobel Prize winner right here, this kid.
Or international drug kingpin. The choice needs to be made now.
Hey, it’s for the betterment of society that this child uses his powers for good rather than evil! ;)