I don't think kicking a seat is privileged by any means. Look, I'm on the side of everyone who wants a peaceful trip. My bottom-line point in my above posts is that it is totally unrealistic to expect a peaceful trip on every flight because it is a public space and, well, it's open to the Lowest Common Denominator ("LCD") effect (apologies that that sounds elitist -- open to suggestions). As most people have pointed out, repeated seat kicking by a child is in reality very rare, and when it does happen it's clearly the parents' faults, and it's probably fine to say something politely to the parent.

More common, though, are the other disturbances by kids, like screaming, crying, touching, etc. At times these are impossible to control, and that's just the way it is. I understand these are annoying. With kids under a certain age, however -- generally innocent children who are not fully aware of what's going on -- it's hard to get too upset in my book. I know people disagree.

What puzzles me, and what got me involved in this discussion in the first place, is the implicit (intended or not) argument that somehow kids are the worst offenders in the airspace, which I think is clearly false. I've listed some of the LCD violations that drive me crazy previously. Most of these LCD violations are perpetrated by adults. This past weekend I flew IAH-LAS in F on CO, which I admit is asking for it, but I had to make the trip. There were several young 20-something boys on the flight in F, baseball hats on backwards, very loud, etc. One of them sat behind me. He had earphones on. Halfway through the flight my seat started getting kicked. Repeatedly. In a bad rhythm. He was "jamming" to his music, and thought that trying to replicate the beat on my seat was acceptable behavior. I finally turned around and gestured to him to stop kicking my seat. This got some "ooohs" from his "buddies" and, sadly, harder kicking. I thought about this thread, and reminded myself to be stoic. Finally he stopped. I almost got up to mention the behavior to an FA, and probably would have if he hadn't stopped, but ultimately there's not much to do in this kind of situation, especially with a jerk who is intent on antagonizing me because I objected to his right to jam.

LCD behavior is a risk whenever there are a lot of people on top of each other, e.g. in movie theaters, planes, buses, subways, etc. I myself avoid LCD situations like the plague. A parent that truly allows a child to terrorize other passengers on a plane (or, for that matter, diners in a restaurant, etc. etc.) is an LCD phenomenon. A lot of other behaviour by children does not fall into this category.