to be annoyed with child kicking my seat for seven hours on plane?

[Jonnyfan]

Just returned from Dubai. On flight a young child persisted in kicking/pushing feet into the back of my seat for much of the first couple of hours. Eventually politely asked mother, who was seated beside him, if she could try to stop him. She was most put out and replied that it was a long flight and difficult with children, (she had two other adults with her as well as two boys). She then moved him so that he was behind my DH, who then had severel hours of the same before politely commenting that it was very irritating behaviour. Mohter gave me the evils through the disembark/baggage reclaim. I travelled extensively with my children from four months onward and never felt that others should be made uncomfortable by them

Definitely YANBU.

Saying that though, I have been that parent where DD1 at about 1 year old kicked and screamed for the best part of a four flight. The second the plane took off, she had a runny nose and we can only guess that she must have been getting pressure behind the ear. It was Thompson plane and so they wouldnt let us take her in the galley.

The women in front spent the whole flight(starting within the first 5 minutes) looking back at us and tutting. I had my daughter up and down the plane, in the toilets(the staff completely unhelpful), then my wife, up and down, calpol etc etc Pretty exhausting. After 3 hours and about the 10th time she looked back again as my daughter was red and crying looked straight at me, shook her head and tutted.

I then leant over and told her to fuck off in no uncertain terms.

So it can be difficult for both.

I hate threads like this. Some posters on here should be patting themselves on their backs because they managed to breed such little angels. I am particularly at Albert Camus' posts. Why did you have children, Albert, and God forbid, teach them, when it is clear you dislike them so much??? I'm not excusing bad behaviour or parents's failure to rein their kids in but come on, what a lot of sanctimonious, intolerant people....

Flying long haul in cattle class is shit and even more so for kids. I don't think most people deliberately allow their kids to be naughty on flights. As I said earlier, I bet many of you who were being kicked, had reclined your seats about an inch away from the kid's face....

I used to fly loads (with work) and have never been unduly bothered by kids on flights.

Yanbu -- have travelled with three under six and none of mine have kicked, been up and down with the chair or the table. They've been shushed, and entertained, and sat on my lap, and walked up and down, to avoid these things. All of which may be annoying in themselves. But deliberately annoying behaviour needs stringent efforts to stop it.

Fecking well hate women who don;t thnk of the impact their little darlings behaviour has on everybody else - is half of what is wrong with the world today - take some bloody responsibility and make your kid listen to you - AAARRRGGGHHHH - I get a bit pissed off by this subject as it happens without fail every time I go to the cinema.

I often have this in the cinema and rather than fuming I get up and very lodly tell the child it is not cceptable to be doing than and then I give the parnet a stern look just daring them to say anything - it usually works and people keep away from me thnking I am slightly unhinged.

On a flight I would have said something immediatly about hoping the mother could get a handle on it now rather than us both having to spend the flight on edge and if that didn't work I would tell the stewardess that either the mother and child or I needed moving or my finger would be hitting the call button every time my seat was kicked.

It isn't a question of 'little angels'- they are not allowed to kick seats full stop. I expect other parents to do the same-not bleat that it isn't possible.

It is of course hard work-you can't just sit back and expect them to sit still!

I often fly long haul with my 3 and 5 year olds and I do understand how hard it is for them not to kick the chair in front, but that's just not good enough really. If it is a choice between the person in front being put out by constant kicking, or me being put out by an entire flight of actively containing my children I choose the latter.

I tell them not to. I explain why and stress how important it is. I remind them. I help them to physically move so their feet are tucked up, or on my knee. And if they do it again I give them a rocket. It is unacceptable behaviour.

Last flight was particularly gruesome and I was so aware of the chap in front. As we were disembarking he turned around to say something to me - I thought he was going to have a go, but instead he thanked me and said that although they had been a bit of a pita, he really appreciated that I had done absolutely everything I could to minimise their disruption, and that I must be absolutely exhausted. It was nice of him.

The odd kick is fine and you expect it, but for her to not stop them is wrong.

Flying with children is hard but it's up to the parents to at least make an effort to keep them from being to much of an irritation to others.

We fly every year with our DD now aged 6 and she wouldn't get away with kicking the seats and shes not allowed to pull the food tray up and down either.

I would of had a word with a flight attendant tbh.

I wouldn't have lasted 10 mins and I can't stand it in cinema's either. Why do parents think its ok for their progeny to stand up and lean against the seat in front, talking next to my ear, pulling my hair or interfering with my children who are sitting in their seats nicely?

I know its not easy to notice what they're doing all the time, but if i see that the behaviour is being ignored by the parent I will turn and tell the child not to touch me and sit down please. I would do the same to a child kicking my seat. If i hadn't noticed my child kicking someone elses seat and they got told off, it would be backed up by me. They have had it explained and understand that its not a nice thing to do, that includes fiddling with the traytable and jamming things in and out of the seat pocket. We fly every year and have just moved onto long haul 6-7hrs flights to the middle east which both children handle admirably.

YANBU. Its the mother's responsibility to discipline the child to the point where it doesn't do that. If she can't do that she shouldn't bring it on the plane.

Some children are easier to manage/discipline than others. What is probably most annoying (to me anyway) is when the parent(s) seem to be making no effort to do anything about it.

I'm not sure what other people find more annoying about our family when on the same transport or in the same cafe/restaurant as us: the wilful disobedience of ds or my constant screeching 'come back here', 'don't do that', etc.

Other passengers being kicked in the back have my sympathies, especially if they've had to put up with it for long periods. I personally don't mind if the passenger has a quiet but stern word with ds. It shows they understand what we're going through but makes it clear to ds that his behaviour is unacceptable.