Perhaps. I've addressed that in another post.

That's correct, but if seat assignments are changed, the problem is between you and the airline, not you and other passengers.

In a theater, the mood is destroyed and both audience and actors distracted if a child "goes off." Removing the child is a question of too little too late as the damage is done. However, I agree that no analogy is perfect.

He said this, which is a more elegant version of the identical concept: "seems that when some people see kids on a plane the red mist descends. You are obviously one of those people."

Sorry, misread the type of theater you were addressing. At this point in her life, live theater means Dora, Disney on Ice and the like... in other words, kid-friendly.

Based on your original post... you came off that way. Probably not intentionally, but it's only been through 5 or 6 notes that you've explained your point of view in a way that doesn't come off as angry and, possibly, anti-child.

I'll just add that if you've got a very small child in a carseat behind you and you recline your seat all the way, their legs end up about an inch from your seat back. This happened to me on the last flight I took with my 1.5-year-old son. It was impossible to stop him from making contact with the back of the seat even accidentally unless I held his feet down, which I did do, but couldn't do for every moment the entire duration of the flight. Luckily it was short-haul.

I'm completely sympathetic to how annoying it is, and believe me, as someone who's flown a lot with a baby, I am extremely active in trying not to bother the passengers around us. I know no one wants to sit near the lady with the baby. But if you happen to find yourself in a situation like the one above and you want the kicking to stop, just FYI: moving your seat up a little bit will be more effective than giving the kid dirty glances.

I think those are great -- a wonderful way to introduce children to live performance. That's how I got my love of theater -- my parents used to take me to children's theater.

That's funny, because I wrote nearly the identical text (re: whose problem it is, imposition, etc.) in a thread on Customers of Size and was thanked for being courteous and sensitive. It seems that whenever the subject of children's behavior on planes comes up, there's a very distinct line drawn in the sand and things usually turn rather hostile. I'm rather amazed that hasn't been the case in this thread -- perhaps I was just over-anticipating.

When I fly with my son, I remind him not to kick the seats before the flight. I will reprimand him if he does so deliberately, and make every attempt to be considerate to other passengers.

However, as any parent knows, child control is a probabilistic thing. Most of the time they are good, but sometimes, they are not, despite all attempts to the contrary. I understand that controlling my child is my problem, but if there aren't any good solutions (and you don't seem to offer any), then you are going to get annoyed. Sorry about that, I feel badly about it, but not badly enough to tell my kid he can't go see grandma because he might act up and some guy might be annoyed if it happens.

You're joking, right? You don't really consider aiming the air vent to be assault?

You must have a different type of air vents than I do. I can hardly get them pointed at me in the right direct, let's not even try and aim them at the guy behind me! The day a guy complains about getting blown, well, you know what I mean.

That's what I was thinking. I can't figure out how one could possibly be assaulted with an airvent. Unless, I guess, it's somehow removed from the ceiling and used to bludgeon the seat kicker. <shrug>

Pre-kids, I had been on several long-haul flights with a kid kicking the back of myseat. I glared at the parents on most occasions, and generally got an apology. In some cases the parents really were trying to control the kids, sometimes not. In all cases, *I chose to not lose my cool over it*, even though I was annoyed. On one occasion on my way to France I actually befriended the haggered dad, made friends with the kids, and made the best of the situation.

With my own kid, I've been pretty lucky. My son usually falls asleep as soon as the plane starts to move. We've had occasional crying, but nothing crazy, and most people seem understanding. My son isn't big enough to kick the front seat, but I'm sure he will at some point and I'll do my best to (1) physically prevent it and (2) teach him the importance not to do it.

I understand that some people don't want kids, don't like kids, and don't want to tolerate kids. If that's the way you feel, you mostly have complete control over your life to avoid kids. In airplanes you simply do not, and as many people have pointed out, sometimes kids just lose it despite the best efforts of parents.

Unfortunately, the reality is that you just have to deal with it in the very rare event that a kid actually loses it for an extended period of time. Kids are a part of the public sphere. You can get all bent out of shape, but that's really your own issue of not being able to deal with a congested, restricted public situation that by its very nature means being forced to potentially deal with all sorts of unpleasant situations. And, frankly, someone's inability to deal gracefully is not my problem.

Yep, I think you were. I've seen enough of these threads to know how they usually go. I rewrote several things more than once to make sure I didn't escalate it into the normal bomb of a thread.

You don't know how hard it was to not get sadistic and wish you a long-haul flight with 300 kids on a field trip. Now, that would be your problem.

Actually, that's true in or out of a carseat for those that don't have legs long enough so that their knees can bend. Straight legs with a reclined seat is a recipe for seat kicking, with very little that can be done to prevent it - switching the parent's and child's seats would be about the only possible solution, and that's not possible if you're using a car seat since the child MUST go in the window in almost every case.

HedgeFundFlyer, I couldn't have said it better myself.

I will never forget the kindness of the stranger sitting across from me on an SFO-EWR flight when my son was about five months old. He was quiet for most of the flight, but there was bad weather blocking all departures in Newark and we had to sit on the ground for almost an hour after we landed because our gate was occupied. After already having been on that plane for close to six hours, my son totally lost it and screamed the entire time. We tried feeding him, soothing him, playing with him... nothing we could do was helping; the only thing that would have worked was to walk up and down the aisles, but we were required to stay seated.

I felt so helpless and awful and knew we had to be disturbing everyone around us, and at one point apologized to those seated around us. The woman said, "Don't worry about it; he's just expressing the exact same frustration that the rest of us are feeling."

It was a miserable hour for me; I'm sure it was a miserable hour for everyone in earshot. But the fact that that woman dealt with it gracefully and didn't choose to make me feel even worse about the situation made it a whole lot better.

Far worse than the kid kicking your seat is the parent allows them to stand on the tray rest and slap your head and pull your hair - had that on an over night flight from KUL-LHR, and the mother (scum) couldn't give a damn that her child was doing it, despite my protests to her and the crew.

Her mitigation "he can't sleep and he's bored, I'm on my own and I fell asleep what do you expect me to do" - in the end she sent him off to go and play somewhere while the lazy %%^& went back to sleep.

I eventually fell asleep wondering whether, as we were on an international flight, she was committing any offence, allowing her child to slap someones head and pull their hair when she was in a position to prevent it

Benadryl is a non-prescription agent in the United States and has dosing forms approved for kids, including oral liquids and chewable tablets. As long as it is given according to the directions, it is perfectly legal to give a child medication. Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) or Dramamine/Gravol may not be available except by prescription in other countries, but you are perfectly within your rights to take it with you.

Physicians, nurses and pharmacists get prescriptions for their kids for travel all of the time. I don't know one doc, RN or pharmacist who has not given his kids a non-prescription agent at some point to keep them calm during travel. In the case of a nurse or doc, the kids could not be any safer when they travel. Medications prescribed for this purpose should be prescribed by a physician or authorized prescriber with appropriate experience in pediatrics. It is quite legal to do so, and helps the parents as well.

I am a father of three sons, and I understand how difficult it can be to travel, but an 8 year old should know better. Any misbehavior on the plane is due to the parents lack of preparation for the flight. Kids get bored, and parents should be prepared for this. Toys, books, games or other diversions are their responsibility, no matter how much they try to abrogate this with "kids will be kids".

Crawl down off the cross. Martyr of the year has already been selected.

let's keep this thread cool and avoid discussing other FlyerTalk members. Historically these sorts of threads tend to go downhill. Let's avoid that by simply sticking to the topic.

Thanks!

--richard, moderator