Children being a nuisance

merika

merika

Wol
O.G.
Nov 1, 2006
10,400
115
#1
I just read this online. ABC News: Crying Child and Her Parents Removed From Flight

I've had my son throw a tantrum on a plane when it was about to take off...fortunately I was allowed to hold him and restrain him and he fell asleep shortly after. I was totally frazzled and didn't know what set him off. He was probably tired after 14-15 hours of international flight.

I drank two complimentary glasses of wine and that immediately made me feel better!

Do any of you have war stories?
 
#2
I can't believe they were kicked off the flight!!! Little kids have meltdowns...you can't predict when/where. Especially on planes...sometimes little kids just get scared, or their ears hurt, or they're hungry, whatever. How sad for those poor parents.

I don't have any children of my own, but I've seen some INSANE meltdowns on airplanes. On the way home from Connecticut, this little kid behind me was losing his mind screaming, and I finally turned around and said, "Hey there! Do you have anything fun to play with? I need a toy, I'm bored. Want to play?" And he was so shocked that I was some random stranger approaching him that he stopped crying and started looking around for a coloring book to offer me. :lol:

I would think that professional flight attendants would be more helpful and sympathetic.
 
#3
i sympathize with both sides in the matter. as a business, you have to be able to guarantee some semblance of comfort for the hundred other passengers, who all paid $300+ for their tickets, but what are you really going to do about a little kid that's scared? I felt like having a meltdown the first time that i flew, and i was 12. and families can't help but travel with their children sometimes. i think that as long as the parents weren't completely ignoring the kid and trying to calm her, they should have let them stay. it's not like a screaming 3-year-old is a threat to national security or something. although i would have been pissed if i was on the plane, i don't think i would have asked that they be removed.
 
#4
i apologize if i sound crass, but little kids and planes are probably the worst combination ever. if parents know that their kids are prone to throw fits, give them half a tylenol pm or something. the other passengers on the plane are already stressed out from airports and such and they should not be trapped inside a plane with a screaming kid that cannot be controlled.
 
#5
On a flight from MI to CA, I saw a mom and her small child in first class. Of course, I was stuck back in coach, but if I had paid for first class I would have been pretty aggravated if the child even uttered one peep the entire flight. Personally, I don't think kids should be allowed in first class. Just my two cents.

On the flip side, though, flight attendants and parents should have Tylenol pm ready and available!
 
#7
Personally, I don't think kids should be allowed in first class.
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We fly to Florida every month, my kids (6 & 3) included, always in First Class. Frankly, it's better for everyone.. The seating is 2 & 2 so I sit with my youngest & my husband sits with my 6 year old. The bigger seats accomodate games, books & a DVD player & it's more comfortable for the kids to nap plus if my youngest ever gets cranky (which is rare), we are much less likely to disturb the majority of people in coach. If I paid a full price ticket for my child then they have just as much right to be in first as anyone else.

Luckily, my kids are used to traveling & are generally well behaved (no meltdowns to date..) Granted, a screaming child is fun for no one on a plane. When the parents are trying everything to calm them, I feel sorry for them. I know they are mortified. When they do nothing, it's a bit irritating though.
 
#8
When we came back from Rome last year there was a couple of preteen boys on our flght. It was a huge plane so maybe there were 30-40 seats in first class. They sat near us & there might of been 8 people in first class. They picked on each other & one kept SCREAMING at the top of his lungs to the other. Finally I saw the flight attendent go to a couple that were sitting in the last row near coach. She got up & came & talked to them. It was their mother! She sat there & did nothing while they fought back & forth! Her & her dh sat about as far away from them as they could of!
Next time I'm subjected to this kind of crap for a flight I pay for, I'm going to complain till something is done. I'm tired of these parents who think the basic rules of common decency don't apply to their kids.
 
#9
lorihmatthews said:
Personally, I don't think kids should be allowed in first class. Just my two cents.]

Understand your point here, Lori, when you pay so much more for a ticket, the whole point is comfort and a more pleasant flight, which instead could turn out to be a nightmare if there was a screaming child..
On the other hand, as acegirl experiences, the kids are more comfortable and occupied in first class, so less chance of them getting frazzled and I have to say, I'd be pretty peeved off if I wanted to travel first class and couldn't take my kids..
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#10
medhavini said:
Didn't understand the reason for that statement. I presume the parents paid for the seat?
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i assume that she meant that if you pay for the extra comfort of first class, you expect that that extra money means the airline will assure that you're not disturbed during the flight, and a child is presumably more likely to cause a disturbance than an adult (although i know plenty of adults that ACT like children).

ultimately, i think it's REALLY important for parents to be honest with themselves about the behavior of their children and where it is and where it's not appropriate to take them, particularly if there are going to be dozens of unsuspecting people that pay a lot of money to be in an enclosed space with them.

an airplane is an unfortunate situation, though, because it's very hard to remove someone from an airplane (and impossible if it's already taken off). a movie theater or something similar, on the other hand...damn, i'd grab the kid and remove her myself if i had to. leave the kid at home until he or she is old enough and mature enough to behave herself - that's what my parents did, and both my brother and i were much better behaved kids for it.

maybe the parents should have realized that taking a toddler on a LONG airplane flight right after she had ear surgery (a lot of ADULTS with NO surgery history have ear pain during flight) for a trip that wasn't absolutely necessary (it was a family vacation) was not the wisest decision. possibly a car trip closer to home would have been more appropriate, and i feel like the parents should absolutely be held responsible for that decision. my family certainly didn't go on any flight-required pleasure trips until i was old enough to not make strangers suffer.
 
#11
I remember when I was a kid, we never even traveled on airplanes for vacations. Mom and Dad went on trips, but we stayed home or went camping or on car trips for family vacations.

I have traveled all over the world and have witnessed my fair share of horrible children on planes. I have also seen parents bring children on long flights (8+ hours or more) with no toys, diapers or baby formula (!) and have the nerve to expect airline crews to provide those things. I have also been on trans-atlantic flights where the parent is asleep wearing a face mask and earplugs and their children are wide awake and swinging from the rafters.

This story is just a small example of how the world of adults and children, IMO, has been blurred. My husband and I have traveled to expensive resorts and have not been able to relax because children were running around the pool areas unchecked, screaming and making a nuisance. (Parents nowhere to be found.) Same goes for expensive restaurants. Anyone been to Las Vegas lately? Toddlers and strollers in CASINOS. I don't mind children, in fact I love kids, but there is a limit to what people should have to endure. And also, more importantly, expecting children to maintain their composure in situations clearly more appropriate for adults is unreasonable.

Also, with airline travel since 9/11, I FULLY SUPPORT the airline crew acting within their own authority to remove disruptive passengers, including children. I am just disappointed they backed down and offered the family FREE TICKETS. Do you think the parents of children who BEHAVED were offered free tickets? No way.

(Flame away.)
 
#12
Roo said:
I have traveled all over the world and have witnessed my fair share of horrible children on planes. I have also seen parents bring children on long flights (8+ hours or more) with no toys, diapers or baby formula (!) and have the nerve to expect airline crews to provide those things. I have also been on trans-atlantic flights where the parent is asleep wearing a face mask and earplugs and their children are wide awake and swinging from the rafters.

This story is just a small example of how the world of adults and children, IMO, has been blurred. My husband and I have traveled to expensive resorts and have not been able to relax because children were running around the pool areas unchecked, screaming and making a nuisance. (Parents nowhere to be found.) Same goes for expensive restaurants. Anyone been to Las Vegas lately? Toddlers and strollers in CASINOS. I don't mind children, in fact I love kids, but there is a limit to what people should have to endure. And also, more importantly, expecting children to maintain their composure in situations clearly more appropriate for adults is unreasonable.

Also, with airline travel since 9/11, I FULLY SUPPORT the airline crew acting within their own authority to remove disruptive passengers, including children. I am just disappointed they backed down and offered the family FREE TICKETS. Do you think the parents of children who BEHAVED were offered free tickets? No way.

(Flame away.)
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Not flaming you. It's very bad when parents pretend not to notice or ignore when the kids are behaving badly. Toddlers have meltdowns all over the place, and I have awful memories of my kid having a breakdown and me leaving with him slung under my armpit like a loaf of bread while he was red faced and screeching. I realize that a plane is a place where a kid can't be removed, but maybe the parents could have done something more? Besides, tantrums rarely last for more than 15 minutes or so, at least in my experience.
 
#13
I cringe when I get on a plane with kids. On my last trip on a plane, I sat right behind a child throwing a tantrum from the moment we sat down in New York until we landed in Cincinnati. We were flying with two friends who were seated in another section of the plane and could see the child and her mother. They told us that the mother was reading a magazine and wasn't attempting at all to calm the child, and the child was screaming at the top of her lungs. It was a miserable flight.
 
#14
dlg said:
I cringe when I get on a plane with kids. On my last trip on a plane, I sat right behind a child throwing a tantrum from the moment we sat down in New York until we landed in Cincinnati. We were flying with two friends who were seated in another section of the plane and could see the child and her mother. They told us that the mother was reading a magazine and wasn't attempting at all to calm the child, and the child was screaming at the top of her lungs. It was a miserable flight.
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I was on a flight from Dallas to Seattle, after flying to Dallas from Paris. I was exhausted. In the seat in front of me, sat a very young mother (she frankly looked like a teenager) with a little girl who appeared to be about 18 mos. old. This kid screamed and flailed for almost the entire flight. The mother wore her ipod the whole time and pretty much ignored it. I finally moved to the back of the plane because combined with the screaming/tantrum in front of me and some really creepy people next to me (different post :rolleyes: ) I was just too exhausted to take it. Usually when I've seen kids throwing tantrums on planes, they last a lot longer than 15 minutes....
 
#15
I always get the seat in front of the kid who thinks it's cute to kick the seat back the entire trip. Glaring and asking politely that they stop never helps.

Regarding the story about removing the family. It was a safety and Federal regulation issue. They'd already delayed 15 minutes for this child to settle down--she was crawling under seats and refused to sit in her seat and buckle up--it's the law!!!They can't take off till everyone is in their seats and buckled up. Mom wanted to hold her in her lap and the FA's refused because the child was clearly older than regulations permit. For heaven's sake, the airline refunded their money AND gave them free tickets!!! The parents are typical of those who think their little darling can do no wrong. And what were they thinking, traveling by air shortly after their daughter had ear surgery?? I'm completely on the side of the FA's and the airline--a clear issue of Federal Air Regulations and they'd already delayed waiting for this child to sit in her seat. How long are the other passengers and the crew supposed to wait?
 
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