I guess some of those deeply annoyed passengers will look for a plan B.

Like avoiding flights/carriers that offer the biggest discounts for kids... (You would find out by making flight searches for "one adult + one kid" and identify those carriers that offer the cheapest seats...)

Don't shoot the messenger here...

jubguy3 wrote:

"Mom, how bad was I as a kid?" "Here honey, read this news article."

This will make for some amazing Christmas dinner table discussion in 20 years!!

georgiaame wrote:

tonystan wrote:

Kid has behavioral problems, it happens! Giving the kid a slap is not exactly helpful!

I am the father of two amazing kids who have been flying since they were 2 weeks old. Domestically, internationally, economy, up front. So I respectfully disagree with you. BIG TIME! My big one mouthed off to me when he was 14. It happened only once. This brutally violent horrible parent smacked him across the face (he stood a head taller than me [the pronoun is "I", but it sounds terrible]) He never, ever pulled that stunt again. My kids knew from day 1 that flying was a privilege, they did it at my discretion, and that they were the luckiest kids on the block to be able to fly. Let the little savage run wild now, he is guaranteed to be ten times worse once puberty hits. I feel bad for the kid, he has no excuse. The parents are well, not exactly parents. Clearly, arguing logically with an uncontrollable 3 year old, as is wont in Sweden, does not work.

This!

Jouhou wrote:

sevenair wrote:

Sedate or isolate the problem and don't fly. Simples. You do not have the right to fly. If you can't fly without causing a disturbance then tough luck. In a world where you can get thrown off for swearing or wearing a shirt with a swear word on yet it's ok to terrorise an entire economy cabin for a transatlantic flight then we have a serious problem.

It's an odd state of affairs when society quite happily mutilates boys without anaesthesia yet a clip around the ears will get you jail time.

What a wonderful world we live in!

FYI beating your kids without leaving permanent injury is still legal in the usa.

Also since you apparently didn't get it when myself and others said it before so I will say it again.

AUTISM. THIS LOOKS LIKE AUTISM.

Is it really? in all of the US? BTW he was on a German plane (Lufthansa) flying outside the US for much of the flight. I do agree with you though, he's not just another spoiled brat, he has a problem.

kbmiflyer wrote:

This happened six months ago. Would suck to be on the flight, but not sure it is really worthy of much discussion. Part of flying with the public is you are sometimes going to have passengers that make a flight suck. Hopefully those instances are few and far between.

We can berate the state of parenting vs kids with emotional problems all we want, won't change what happened on this flight and won't prevent this from happening on a future flight.

Back on Northwest Airlines - flying MSP-SEA in the 90s - we had one in the bulkhead row of Y. I remember the incident because I was in the last row of F. The plane was packed on a Friday night, so there was nowhere to move the family.

Most of us understood that the child was brain-damaged and was his way to see a neurologist.

Glad I wasn't the parent since that would have meant I would have had to take the child home with me.

usdcaguy wrote:

Parents aren’t allowed to hit their kids anymore

And rightfully so.

sevenair wrote:

It’s a 3 minute long video with snippets taken every hour showing a continual situation with no obvious intervention by the parents.

...do you seriously not see the problem with making assumptions about what the parents did or did not do from "a 3 minute long video [of an 8-hour flight] with snippets taken every hour"?

Do you even bother to think before you post?

sevenair wrote:

Notwithstanding that in this instance the parents don’t smack their kid. They don’t even tell them off.

You know this how?

sevenair wrote:

Sedate or isolate the problem and don't fly. Simples. You do not have the right to fly. If you can't fly without causing a disturbance then tough luck.

Yes, because it's always possible to predict with 100% accuracy when a child will or will not act out...

AWACSooner wrote:

posti wrote:

Just relax and give folks a break, they're trying.

Except, in this case, they weren't

You know this how?

2Holer4Longhaul wrote:

1. The parents should have known that the child would be distressed by flying.

Why should they have known that? Do you know that they've flown with the child before? Maybe the child's been flying lots of times, and it's never been an issue before now. I don't know if that's the case or not, and neither do you, so you've got no more business than I do saying they should have known this or that.

Noise wrote:

It's crazy but the kid's screams are almost demonic!!!

1) The parent(s) must have known that the kid would act up before, during and after the flight.

You know this how? Maybe it was their first time flying. Maybe the kid had actually flown many times before with no problems. Stop making assumptions when you don't know what you're talking about.

2) The parent(s) did nothing to subdue the kid during the flight.

You know this how?

Tough situation. Beating may help in the short term but can really hurt in the long run. Consequences do work.

On one flight there was a 2-3 year siting behind me kicking my seat and crying and acting out on and off for a few hours. You could see that the mom was pulling her hair out. When they both got up to use the facilities I followed them back and suggested that the mom should tell her kid, quietly that it is "Ok to cry but since we are bothering everyone else we will have to do it in the rest room." This lasted for about 5 minutes and the rest of the flight was a non event.

I learned about this in a great book by a guy named John Rosmeund. I think the title was How to Raise a Happy and Independent Child.

Hope this helps someone.

Route66 wrote:

speedbird52 wrote:

Punishment is a system that works on fear. And by making your kids afraid of an authority figure, rather than learning to respect that authority figure, you are making them complacent in oppression. Don't be surprised if you made your children afraid of you, to see them being complicit in a genocide.

Fear of the punishment is why most people don't do crime. I didn't hit my kids but a good pinch in the butt would reinforce lessons they did not want to accept. They don't fear me, they fear the pinch for bad behaviors. Trying to turn that behavior modification into genocide is ridiculous. Seems we have more of that going on today than ever before.

Fear of punishment can also become fear of standing up for yourself under the threat of punishment. Your logic assumes that most people have no morality. I myself have done many things that could easily have been punished for the simple reason that I didn't find them wrong, and have refrained from several things that could not have been punished for the reason that I found them to be wrong. (Speaking of crime, our punishment and deterrent system is notoriously ineffective) As for how to discipline kids, I feel that I had a bond of love and respect with my parents from early childhood, that made me not do things out of fear of displeasing them, rather than punishment from them. Here is a specific example: As a child I spent wayyyy too much time on a computer. I lost track of the amount of times I have been punished for it. And yet to this day I still find myself using screens far more then is healthy. Even for a young adult/youth. Never once have I been punished for bad manners, the worst I got was a talking to about the importance of politeness when I incessantly referred to a man who's name I had not yet learned as "man". Since then I have always made it a point to deliberately try to have good manners in all my dealings with people. Of course, I suppose that is just me.

Several years ago i was on an AA flight from Heathrow to DFW on a brand new B777-300. There was a family travelling with their children occupying the rows behinf mine. Sitting next to me was a FA deadheading from an afternoon flight that had been cancelled due to a previous ice storm situation in Dallas. The little brother and sister were fighting during part of the flight and kicking the backs of our seats etc. The parents were sitting across the aisle and seemed to let this kind of behavior go on. I tried my best to tolerate them and so did the FA. After several hours of this I finally had enough and I loosened my seatbekt turned around and with a stern voice said Hey Cut It Out. I guess I frightened them becuase the kicking stopped. The kids did trash the plane by grinding crackers into the carpet etc. Needless to say i was happy when we got to DFW

Jouhou wrote:

sevenair wrote:

This ‘behavioural issues’ is just a modern fall back for poor and weak parenting, a society that looks for problems that aren’t there and people who seek as many oppression points as possible just like the allergy brigade.

This is nothing a good slap or two wouldn’t solve but that’s not the modern way. I doubt very much you’d see this 20-30 years ago. Another shocking display of the breakdown in society.

I never board anything that moves or enter a hotel without a stash of earplugs. My crewbag is usually stuffed with them.

The sad thing is that once you get the doctors involved it makes later life much more difficult when they come to applying for jobs that require a medical such as becoming a pilot. Accept there’s a problem, own it and act accordingly.

I partly pity the parents although my sympathy is limited as once he hits puberty and he’s taller and stronger than the parents and equally as out of control then life will get very ugly for them very quickly.

Um. In this case "Behavioral problems" is likely a euphemism for "my kid has Autism and it didn't occur to me he would have such a bad meltdown"

I can tell you right now hitting an autistic kid is just gonna make it worse.
Also, people don't hit your kids. I've grown up to love but resent my father for hitting me. I still remember and I don't forgive him.

I concur. An autistic child is over-stimulated. I have friends who have a son that if he doesn't have his comfy, he'll scream. Thankfully, it is a once mass produced item many of us have in our homes, a Nintendo Wii controller. I carry one when hanging out with the family, felt silly a hundred times, and then the child needed it.

I remember every time my parents spanked me. Since they only did so when I risked life or limb, I had no trouble forgiving. But if they hadn't... I forgive most people, but I'm certain nobody forgives a threat or action that induces fear.


But I also question how these parents didn't have a control strategy. I'm assuming parents. As a divorced father, I know if my discipline gets too strict, I lose custody. So if my child went off on a plane, at some point I would have to accept it. Rules are very different for divorced mom's.

Lightsaber

william wrote:

Bose QC35II headphones................."What screaming child?"

Lol I was just about to say the exact thing.

Anyways, this is life. Things happen. Can’t always be perfect. It’s not ideal but making a fuss about it will accomplish nothing.

If this were an adult he or she would have been removed from the flight immediately before take off or the flight would have been diverted to do so. Why should a child be treated any differently? I get he MIGHT have behavioral problems, but if he can't remain calm and in his seat doesn't that make him a safety concern?

Children less than 4 year old are difficult to reason with, so In my case I let it go, I have been there and my kids were well behaved my nieces were not. I have been with noisy children because its their first flight and are overexcited, but a good movie and an <ipad will keep em quiet for hours, I once had a bad experience with a 6 to 7 year old making noise complaining and crying-shouting, the parents put some eye masks and let him do whatever, after 90 minutes of enduring this "monster" sitting next to me on a 767, i flipped and put my head a centimeter from his nose and told him forcefully to shut up while giving him a pinch with my nails (as a guitar player they are though) he screamed in pain but nobody did something.... he tried to scream again and I grasped his torso ready for another pinch.... AHHHHH 4 hours of silence to YYZ...

The problem is not the kid but the parent that sometimes do nothing..

TRB

crownvic wrote:

skipness1E wrote:

1) My child has behavioral issues.
2) Should I book him on a long haul flight?

Noooooooooooooooooooooooo. Who DOES that?

the same screwed up people who travel with an emotional support animal.

You have one the thread.

Oh... Must resist bad hamster jokes...

Lightsaber

People make it sound so easy. Just tell him to stop. Or smack him.

We live it every day. We have a really nice little boy with major developmental problems. Kicked out of two preschools because the teachers couldn't keep a class functioning with him in it. PRESCHOOLS!

In special education preschool where there is a 3-1 ratio and still often the main teacher has to pay special attention to him just to get him to do anything. He melts down if anything goes wrong like it's the end of the world. If he's having fun he gets so hyper and over stimulated that you have to make him stop. He barely feeds himself which means you need to help him for 30 minutes or more just to eat a small amount. He is likely spectrum but too young to diagnose.

We can't leave him with baby sitters because he simply isn't going to listen to them. One of us has to be with him when he's not at school, 24/7. Sometimes you have to flick his arm or smack his bottom for him to snap out of whatever trance he seems to be in. And then you hear him scream "you hit me so hard!" Even though we didn't at all. Do that in public and you will lose your kid to foster care where he will be abused due to his problems or tortured by older kids who he will trust no matter what they tell him to do.

He's getting better as he gets older, but this isn't the life we expected. And we have a 6 month old who is developing normally and it's an eye opener. "So this is how easy it is for most parents! The ones who tell you it's all your fault... "

And yet, he's great on airplanes for the most part. Airports are tough because it's hard to corral him. And if the bathroom has a loud fan or automatic toilets, good luck getting him to go.

db373 wrote:

If this were an adult he or she would have been removed from the flight immediately before take off or the flight would have been diverted to do so. Why should a child be treated any differently? I get he MIGHT have behavioral problems, but if he can't remain calm and in his seat doesn't that make him a safety concern?

Probably. It's why my sister hasn't taken her daughter on a plane yet and she's 12. She will likely freak out. They drive everywhere and stay in motels overnight. But that mean something they haven't gone more than 1000 miles from home.

But there may be a situation where you must fly. Not sure what to do in that case.

freakyrat wrote:

Several years ago i was on an AA flight from Heathrow to DFW on a brand new B777-300. There was a family travelling with their children occupying the rows behinf mine. Sitting next to me was a FA deadheading from an afternoon flight that had been cancelled due to a previous ice storm situation in Dallas. The little brother and sister were fighting during part of the flight and kicking the backs of our seats etc. The parents were sitting across the aisle and seemed to let this kind of behavior go on. I tried my best to tolerate them and so did the FA. After several hours of this I finally had enough and I loosened my seatbekt turned around and with a stern voice said Hey Cut It Out. I guess I frightened them becuase the kicking stopped. The kids did trash the plane by grinding crackers into the carpet etc. Needless to say i was happy when we got to DFW

When we traveled my brother and I sat together but if we didn't behave, we were separated and mom and dad sat with each of us. Now it's harder because airlines won't facilitiate both parents sitting close to their children. But I your case, the parents could have intervened and obviously didn't care. They tune out the fighting and watch a movie. They are on vacation...

PatrickZ80 wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

AUTISM. THIS LOOKS LIKE AUTISM.

But even autists aren't fools. They may behave different, but they usually got a normal intelligence. Only thing about autism is that they don't see what they're doing wrong until somebody tells them. The only thing it takes is for someone to tell them what they're doing wrong and how to do it right.

The spectrum is so vast you can't just say that. You describe a more mild case. This isn't.

I once was on a flight between BDL and DFW with a four year old girl who screamed and cried the entire flight......her ears hurt her badly. The mother tried her best to subdue her screams the crew and quite a few passengers also tried to help, but to no avail. She was in pain, she screamed, not much could be done, but there was empathy and understanding.

As for this flight, I have no empathy. Autism or not, this mother had no control, nor did she attempt to stop the situation. The child was extremely disruptive and borderline dangerous ( the danger being passengers being possibly angered to the point of taking matters into their own hands). The family should have been removed before departure and not rebooked until a solution to the meltdown could be figured out. Had I been the pilot of that flight, an unscheduled stop in Greenland would have been my solution to the problem

speedbird52 wrote:

sevenair wrote:

This ‘behavioural issues’ is just a modern fall back for poor and weak parenting, a society that looks for problems that aren’t there and people who seek as many oppression points as possible just like the allergy brigade.

This is nothing a good slap or two wouldn’t solve but that’s not the modern way. I doubt very much you’d see this 20-30 years ago. Another shocking display of the breakdown in society.

I never board anything that moves or enter a hotel without a stash of earplugs. My crewbag is usually stuffed with them.

The sad thing is that once you get the doctors involved it makes later life much more difficult when they come to applying for jobs that require a medical such as becoming a pilot. Accept there’s a problem, own it and act accordingly.

I partly pity the parents although my sympathy is limited as once he hits puberty and he’s taller and stronger than the parents and equally as out of control then life will get very ugly for them very quickly.

Just a fun fact: The few occasions my parents slapped me, I cannot remember why I was slapped. Meaning it is very likely that I will do that thing again. All I remember is that I was slapped. Punishment is a system that works on fear. And by making your kids afraid of an authority figure, rather than learning to respect that authority figure, you are making them complacent in oppression. Don't be surprised if you made your children afraid of you, to see them being complicit in a genocide. And for the record, I think behavioral issues is referring to legitimate mental conditions, such as autism.

Sorry I remember what I was spanked over to this day. I also remember not doing things because I did not want the result repeated

Some of the replies here just shock me. The idea that children... let alone children who may have some sort of neurological condition that impacts their behavior... are simple Pavlovian-style savages that need to be ground into obedience is just a sick cocktail of the worst bits of Freud, the worst bits of child-beating Christian Fundamentalism, and "parental expediency Uber Alles."

Any child who is raised in such a manner, frankly, has my moral blessing to put their parents in the nastiest, cheapest and smelliest nursing home possible. At the very least.

Anyway, let's look at the issue. Screaming children on airplanes are unpleasant and annoying. And three year olds are still developing their cognitive capacities. And whilst we don't know the condition this kid is suffering from, that's another factor. We can't rely on rational explanation here, and the whole "just beat the kid" is in my opinion the height of savage and uncivilized. Teaching children that might is right is a great way to undermine the development of actual moral principle.

As I see it, meltdowns like this are clearly not normal. They have to be the product of some sort of condition. Some people have speculated autism - I don't know enough about diagnosing autism to comment, but from what I've read this seems at least plausible. Autism is an objectively demonstrable biological atypicality based in the brain. It is a matter of neurobiology and is innate to a person as their natural hair color. You can't beat a kid like this into normality... at best, you can hope the kid has Asperger's Syndrome and when the kid gets older the parent teaches them how to systematically manipulate people using psychopath-level social-skills that are explicitly detailed in words and principles. Because that's the only way they'll ever become indistinguishable from "normal."

I say this as someone with Asperger's Syndrome myself. We aren't all screaming children, but we do tend to be naturally eccentric or atypical, sometimes we're very quiet and introverted and sometimes we're blustery and blunt. I know I find it hard to gauge exactly how loud I am at times; I don't think its something wrong with my ears although when I'm sick and my sinuses are all clogged things get worse (that, plus the differential noise levels with new models of jet engines...). There's also the fact that SO MUCH of our social protocols regarding interpersonal interaction are tacit rather than explicit, rarely explained, and are assumed to be more or less absorbed via osmosis... and then people with Aspergers get punished or humiliated or accused of "lacking empathy" because they don't "just get it" automatically. But I have a relative with actual hardcore autism (the full big deal), and he does occasionally have meltdowns or freakouts.

You can't just punish these away. At best you can sedate them. This child is 3 and obviously has some problem (perhaps autism). Therapeutic intervention is necessary here.

The parents are probably dealing with a lot. That said, they should've given their child a mild sedative if they thought the kid would be scared and meltdown on a plane.

Seriously, even with autism parents can get some sedatives to calm their kids down. Just ask the doctor and I bet he will gladly give sedatives to them. Sorry, I don't buy the argument of the children has special needs. It's the mistake of the parents that did nothing to calm him down.

BerenErchamion wrote:

Noise wrote:

In my [completely uninformed, and with no awareness of the specifics of the situation] opinion, the parents should be ashamed of themselves for not raising a more disciplined and respectful child.

I'll give your uninformed opinion exactly the credibility it deserves: none at all.

Never a good idea to edit my quote and make it look like I said it.

L0VE2FLY wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

sevenair wrote:

Sedate or isolate the problem and don't fly. Simples. You do not have the right to fly. If you can't fly without causing a disturbance then tough luck. In a world where you can get thrown off for swearing or wearing a shirt with a swear word on yet it's ok to terrorise an entire economy cabin for a transatlantic flight then we have a serious problem.

It's an odd state of affairs when society quite happily mutilates boys without anaesthesia yet a clip around the ears will get you jail time.

What a wonderful world we live in!

FYI beating your kids without leaving permanent injury is still legal in the usa.

Also since you apparently didn't get it when myself and others said it before so I will say it again.

AUTISM. THIS LOOKS LIKE AUTISM.

Is it really? in all of the US? BTW he was on a German plane (Lufthansa) flying outside the US for much of the flight. I do agree with you though, he's not just another spoiled brat, he has a problem.

It's not restricted on a federal level and a small minority of states have banned the practice or limited it to spanking. You know how the U.S. has issues with violence? It's a part of the problem. People are quick to jump into a gun rights debate every time there is a school shooting, but I can guarantee you that the majority of these shooters were beaten as kids. It's accepted in this country and in the South it's almost ritualized. A lot of parents in the south are taught that children can't be raised to be good people without being hit. Which isn't true, but the idea is ingrained in our culture. Mind you southern culture condones this... and they also have much higher violent crime rates than the northeastern states which tend to take a more scientific approach to parenting.

Also when I was digging through youtube for examples of screaming autistic kids I came across an informational video by delta about things parents need to consider before deciding to take their autistic child on their first flight. This is clearly a common mistake made by parents if they are making instructional videos about it.

BerenErchamion wrote:

2Holer4Longhaul wrote:

1. The parents should have known that the child would be distressed by flying.

Why should they have known that? Do you know that they've flown with the child before? Maybe the child's been flying lots of times, and it's never been an issue before now. I don't know if that's the case or not, and neither do you, so you've got no more business than I do saying they should have known this or that.

The Daily Mail article mentioned the mother saying that he'll calm down as soon as they get the WiFi going. That strongly implies that this is not a first time.

sevenair wrote:

This ‘behavioural issues’ is just a modern fall back for poor and weak parenting, a society that looks for problems that aren’t there and people who seek as many oppression points as possible just like the allergy brigade.

And your academic credentials are?

You have worked with children with developmental and behavioral disorders for how long?

Because I'm a board-certified pediatrician who has been my county's local expert on pediatric developmental and behavioral disorders for 13 years and I say you're talking nonsense. I'm not going to teach you everything I know in a forum post, nor do you sound like the kind of person who is interested in being educated.

And do you know what happens when you hit a kid who is having a behavioral escalation? They scream louder.

And no, we don't sedate these kids. I didn't go through 11 years of education and training so I could drug kids into submission.

What next, beat the epilepsy out of a kid? The diabetes? The flu?

Noise wrote:

BerenErchamion wrote:

Noise wrote:

In my [completely uninformed, and with no awareness of the specifics of the situation] opinion, the parents should be ashamed of themselves for not raising a more disciplined and respectful child.

I'll give your uninformed opinion exactly the credibility it deserves: none at all.

Never a good idea to edit my quote and make it look like I said it.

The square brackets are hard to miss, and anyone with post-junior high literacy skills understands what they signify.

Jouhou wrote:

L0VE2FLY wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

FYI beating your kids without leaving permanent injury is still legal in the usa.

Also since you apparently didn't get it when myself and others said it before so I will say it again.

AUTISM. THIS LOOKS LIKE AUTISM.

Is it really? in all of the US? BTW he was on a German plane (Lufthansa) flying outside the US for much of the flight. I do agree with you though, he's not just another spoiled brat, he has a problem.

It's not restricted on a federal level and a small minority of states have banned the practice or limited it to spanking. You know how the U.S. has issues with violence? It's a part of the problem. People are quick to jump into a gun rights debate every time there is a school shooting, but I can guarantee you that the majority of these shooters were beaten as kids. It's accepted in this country and in the South it's almost ritualized. A lot of parents in the south are taught that children can't be raised to be good people without being hit. Which isn't true, but the idea is ingrained in our culture. Mind you southern culture condones this... and they also have much higher violent crime rates than the northeastern states which tend to take a more scientific approach to parenting.

Also when I was digging through youtube for examples of screaming autistic kids I came across an informational video by delta about things parents need to consider before deciding to take their autistic child on their first flight. This is clearly a common mistake made by parents if they are making instructional videos about it.

Correction: No state has a complete ban of corporal punishment.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment_of_minors_in_the_United_States

DocLightning wrote:

sevenair wrote:

This ‘behavioural issues’ is just a modern fall back for poor and weak parenting, a society that looks for problems that aren’t there and people who seek as many oppression points as possible just like the allergy brigade.

And your academic credentials are?

You have worked with children with developmental and behavioral disorders for how long?

Because I'm a board-certified pediatrician who has been my county's local expert on pediatric developmental and behavioral disorders for 13 years and I say you're talking nonsense. I'm not going to teach you everything I know in a forum post, nor do you sound like the kind of person who is interested in being educated.

And do you know what happens when you hit a kid who is having a behavioral escalation? They scream louder.

And no, we don't sedate these kids. I didn't go through 11 years of education and training so I could drug kids into submission.

What next, beat the epilepsy out of a kid? The diabetes? The flu?

MY credentials are yeas of working in flight safety on both sides of the flight deck door. Safety is my priority and regardless of issues, real or perceived, if there’s a threat to flight safety then that threat needs to be removed from the flight. I also have a good honours degree in computing science from a Russel group red brick in addition to my first time passes on 14 ATPL subjects and first time passes on all flight exams. But I’m a mere blue collar brute compared to you. How I bow to thee doctor.

Ive made it clear that I somewhat sympathise with those with genuine conditions but regardless of the condition nobody has a right to fly. Nobody has the right to risk the safety of others. Nobody has the right to ruin the experience of an entire cabin.

Sometimes conditions are such that you simply cannot fly with them.

It was clear at the boarding stage that this wasn’t going to go smoothly and the calls for the WiFi suggest to me that the child has been in that situation before and the parents knowingly put the child back into that same situation.

No. I don’t have 13 years as an expert on such issues. I am educated enough to tell when a child is distressed (or can only an M.D. tell when a scream means ‘I’m dostressed’ and when a scream means ‘turn on the WiFi’?). This was a distressing situation for the child. This was a risk to the safety of others thus forgive me if my sympathy is limited.

Nobody has a right to fly. Those who do fly have a right to fly in safety nobody has a right to jeopardise that.

SEA wrote:

The armchair parenting in this thread is worse than the armchair piloting in other threads!

sevenair wrote:

DocLightning wrote:

sevenair wrote:

This ‘behavioural issues’ is just a modern fall back for poor and weak parenting, a society that looks for problems that aren’t there and people who seek as many oppression points as possible just like the allergy brigade.

And your academic credentials are?

You have worked with children with developmental and behavioral disorders for how long?

Because I'm a board-certified pediatrician who has been my county's local expert on pediatric developmental and behavioral disorders for 13 years and I say you're talking nonsense. I'm not going to teach you everything I know in a forum post, nor do you sound like the kind of person who is interested in being educated.

And do you know what happens when you hit a kid who is having a behavioral escalation? They scream louder.

And no, we don't sedate these kids. I didn't go through 11 years of education and training so I could drug kids into submission.

What next, beat the epilepsy out of a kid? The diabetes? The flu?

MY credentials are yeas of working in flight safety on both sides of the flight deck door. Safety is my priority and regardless of issues, real or perceived, if there’s a threat to flight safety then that threat needs to be removed from the flight. I also have a good honours degree in computing science from a Russel group red brick in addition to my first time passes on 14 ATPL subjects and first time passes on all flight exams. But I’m a mere blue collar brute compared to you. How I bow to thee doctor.

Ive made it clear that I somewhat sympathise with those with genuine conditions but regardless of the condition nobody has a right to fly. Nobody has the right to risk the safety of others. Nobody has the right to ruin the experience of an entire cabin.

Sometimes conditions are such that you simply cannot fly with them.

It was clear at the boarding stage that this wasn’t going to go smoothly and the calls for the WiFi suggest to me that the child has been in that situation before and the parents knowingly put the child back into that same situation.

No. I don’t have 13 years as an expert on such issues. I am educated enough to tell when a child is distressed (or can only an M.D. tell when a scream means ‘I’m dostressed’ and when a scream means ‘turn on the WiFi’?). This was a distressing situation for the child. This was a risk to the safety of others thus forgive me if my sympathy is limited.

Nobody has a right to fly. Those who do fly have a right to fly in safety nobody has a right to jeopardise that.

What country are you from? You sound more American than us Americans but I recall you using euros for currency earlier.

In defense of the good dr. his condescending tone was to drive home the importance of not being abusive towards a child, particularly if they are afflicted with something they are born with. A pediatrician is well aware of the societal consequences that occur when children are harmed. It's not coddling, it's called being a good role model.

And there's no one disagreeing that it was a mistake for that child to be on a plane.

I'm kind of in shock about many of the replies in this thread. Yes, here we have a 3-year-old screaming for 8 hours which certainly is an unpleasant and stressful situation for everyone involved. However, some of the means proposed here to deal with children like that one make me sick to my stomach.

Let's check, we have some people who want to lock children in the downstairs area of an A340, we have some who want to tapegag children, we have some who want to sedate children and we have quite a lot of people who advise physical violence against children - and that's only on page 1. All these abhorrent fantasies in response to a three. year. old. You advocate abusing three-year-olds because you feel that your right to a quiet flight trumps the child's right to not be subject to bodily harm. Sorry for my strong language but have you no decency at all? Please go and take a long, hard look at yourselves in the mirror and ponder for a bit whether these utterances really portray the people you want to be.

I'm just glad that cooler heads make their voices heard in pages 2 and 3 of this thread. Still, the sentiment expressed by a large number of people here is extremely troubling to say the least.

Didn't some Southwest flight attendant slip a Xanax pill into some kids orange juice a few years back ? The kid had been screaming constantly so the FA decided to take matters into his own hands and put the pill in the drink.

I'm not sure what the outcome of that was.

Here's a youtube link with hour by hour updates of the kid.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itaGF-Hsx5o

Many many years ago I had traveled with my family to Hawaii for a long awaited vacation. The final segment of our flight was from LAX-OGG (Los Angeles to Maui). Our excitement was at an all time high, as our dream of vacationing in Hawaii was coming true. However, from the moment we boarded the AA 757, our worst nightmare came true. 2-3 rows behind us was a screaming child, and this child screamed nonstop the entire way from the gate at LAX to the gate in Maui. The kid never stopped once. The thing that made me mad was that the parents did nothing about it. The father slept, and the mother had headphones on that was connected to her tape player (for those that remember what those are). We begged the flight attendant to re-seat us mid flight, as I couldn't take it anymore. The sound gave me such a bad throbbing headache, and my strong patience had worn totally thin. Since the flight was practically full, there was no where to move us. Ill never forget this awful flight with those awful parents.

Jouhou wrote:

In defense of the good dr. his condescending tone was to drive home the importance of not being abusive towards a child, particularly if they are afflicted with something they are born with. A pediatrician is well aware of the societal consequences that occur when children are harmed. It's not coddling, it's called being a good role model.

More importantly, my "condescension" was directed at the idea that "societal mores" are somehow to blame for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. That's absurd.

As far as safety of flight, that's not my area of professional expertise. But I doubt that a screaming child is a safety concern. A comfort concern and a major irritant for the other passengers.

Now, there are unfortunately some children who probably should not be on an airplane because their behavior is too disruptive. When parents take a child into an environment that they know the child cannot handle, then I place the blame for *that* decision on the parents.

But these posts advocating slapping the child until he stops crying (what, until he's unconscious?) or blaming "societal breakdown" for a neurodevelopmental or cognitive disability are just disgusting.

DocLightning wrote:

Jouhou wrote:

In defense of the good dr. his condescending tone was to drive home the importance of not being abusive towards a child, particularly if they are afflicted with something they are born with. A pediatrician is well aware of the societal consequences that occur when children are harmed. It's not coddling, it's called being a good role model.

More importantly, my "condescension" was directed at the idea that "societal mores" are somehow to blame for children with neurodevelopmental disorders. That's absurd.

As far as safety of flight, that's not my area of professional expertise. But I doubt that a screaming child is a safety concern. A comfort concern and a major irritant for the other passengers.

Now, there are unfortunately some children who probably should not be on an airplane because their behavior is too disruptive. When parents take a child into an environment that they know the child cannot handle, then I place the blame for *that* decision on the parents.

But these posts advocating slapping the child until he stops crying (what, until he's unconscious?) or blaming "societal breakdown" for a neurodevelopmental or cognitive disability are just disgusting.

I would indeed call it a safety issue in that a short tempered passenger tries to take matters into his or her own hands resulting in both other passengers joining in, the parents retaliating, as well as possible other passengers. Toss in alcohol being factored in, resulting in a situation the crew would not be able to control. This scenario has happened quite a few times at various Chuck E. Cheese pizza places here in the states and all out brawls resulted.

The solution would be certain flights being designated as ages 10 and up only.

My most notable experience with a child on a flight: Nine hour flight from Vancouver to Heathrow, an affluent looking couple with 5 or so year old daughter take their seats in the middle row across the aisle from us. Before pushback child stands on seat facing passengers behind, starts making faces at them, then proceeds to barf all over passenger seated behind. Fortunately it seemed to be primarily liquid, FA's immediately brought cleaning supplies to get passenger sorted out as much as possible, and gave them extra portions of alcohol and food throughout the flight (hopefully they were heading home, not starting a trip). On climb out as the pressure dropped the child started to cry, which continued non stop all the way to descent into London. There was no sleep for any of us nearby. From the parents, absolutely no reaction, no apology to the barfee, no attempt to comfort the child who was clearly in distress with the low pressure, I wish there were some kind of no fly list for parents like that.

I once was on a JFK-NRT flight across the aisle from a toddler who cried and screamed probably 12 out of those 14 hours. The parents alternately did seem to try various things but then would just give up and let him cry/scream for the next 30 minutes or so, after which the flight attendants would come and take the child away for a little while (they literally took him away from the parents), and bring him back once he was quiet. That would last about 5 minutes and then the cycle would start again. This went on from gate to gate.

It sucked hard, but I don't know at that point what anybody could have done. As an uninvolved person whose only connection to this child was being annoyed and kept awake all flight long, I was definitely angry at the situation and I'm sure I glared at the parents a few times, especially when they seemed to give up. But there was probably nothing they could really do in that moment. The flight attendants, for their part, really tried hard and were obviously as concerned with the comfort of other passengers as they were this one child or the parents (this was on ANA).

It does remind me of something I've been told about the culture of Japan vs. the west, though, which is that kids just don't scream and cry in Japan. It just rarely happens; they're taught that very early. In the west, we're taught that screaming or crying is just how kids express themselves. That encourages more screaming and crying, and people just think it's natural because we see it so often. In Japan and possibly other Asian countries (not sure), screaming and crying in public is just considered rude rather than a normal part of childhood, so parents teach that to their children as soon as they can be taught. It's part of the whole "societal harmony" thing that all kids have to learn. Consequently, when a child does scream or cry in public, it usually means they're really in distress. They wouldn't do it if they just want an ice cream cone or something. If they do, you will see their parents stoop down to their level and quietly scold them. They will not get their ice cream cone. It's like crying wolf.

Of course, even there, there are kids who misbehave because they're kids or because their parents don't care, and there are babies too young to be taught anything who will cry no matter what you do. So it's not that you never, ever see it. But it's definitely uncommon, and it's just because the societal attitude about it is very different.

The child on the flight I was on was probably an age before they could be taught anything. He looked to be about 1. But the parents just seemed to have no skills at all. Maybe it had never happened before, but the flight attendants did a much better job than they did. The child would only start crying again after being returned to his parents.

CairnterriAIR wrote:

I would indeed call it a safety issue in that a short tempered passenger tries to take matters into his or her own hands resulting in both other passengers joining in, the parents retaliating, as well as possible other passengers. Toss in alcohol being factored in, resulting in a situation the crew would not be able to control. This scenario has happened quite a few times at various Chuck E. Cheese pizza places here in the states and all out brawls resulted.

The solution would be certain flights being designated as ages 10 and up only.

Now we have an intersting reversion of cause and effect.
You don't think a "short tempered passenger" is a problem? And giving him alcohol doesn't contribute? You expect a 3-year-old and his mother to make up for the deficits Mr. "short tempered" could not solve in his whole life?
I am not a doctor, but I guess this boy had a mental condition as well, just to make things more difficult. Else he would not find the energy for an 8-hour-tantrum. If it really was exactly the case as the video wants to make us believe anyway. And probably the mum knowing her child best knew exactly what and how much she could do about it.

The passengers on a plane reflect our society, or at least the parts who can afford the ticket. You will have business people, tourists, families, elderly people, teens, kids and babies, handicapped, sick, polite and rude ones, from different countries, cultures, backgrounds and educations. The difference to the normal life is, that they are all confined in a very small place. You can not go away, so all problems between those people are kind of concentrated. If someone has a problem with others it will surface in such an environment first.

For those who can not deal with that I have a different solution: charter your own plane. You should not try to exclude others you don't like from the society. If you want seperation, please seperate yourself. With your own plane you won't have to bother with other people, with enough money you can even choose your pilots and flight attentend.

I am a father of a 5 and a 10 year old. Believe me, I still remember those handful of nights without sleep when one of the babies didn't stop crying, regardless of what we tried. When it was really bad they only stopped hours later when they where to exhausted to do anything else but sleep. I am just happy that this never happened on a plane, because if it happened there was not much I could do regardless how well prepared I was.

And BTW, being well prepared also gives you these looks from your fellow passengers. You try to educate the kids on how to behave and how to interact with others. You tell them what to expect on a trip. You share your enthusiasm (Zipping through the air at almost the speed of sound reaching an other continent in hours still baffles me). You try to keep them fed, entertained and happy. You bring the extra clothing, food, drinks, books, toys, diapers to make the trip as comfortable for the kids as possible and to be prepared for every imaginable situation. But this stuff has to go somewhere, and you may have to access this extra bag during the flight. Basically regardless whatever you do, some smartass will know better. Beeing a parent means you are the constant target of someone else's judgement and critizism. Please people, me and my kids try our very best not to disturb you. Could you please do the same?

This thread is hilarious!

Get on the Fucking plane, ignore the screaming child and act like a grown up when things don't go your way. You don't need to hit someone because things aren't going your way, to me this feels like the same path people go down mentally before they shoot up a school or something.

Sometimes things are shit and need dealing with so suck it up and deal with it.
what if I get on a plane and don't like the look of someones face or they way they talk or the colour of their hair? Whose problem is that? That's mine and so I have to deal with it.

If I get on a plane with my daughter and everyone on the plane is grumpy with me because I didn't do enough to deal with her crying etc. I'm more bothered about her being ok than you and your pretend important meeting that you must be fresh for.

Snowflakes everywhere!

Fred

Drugging minors without parental consent? Name calling? How is this hot garbage thread not locked???