To think it’s wrong of this man to film a child?

[MrsA2015]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5391341/Passenger-films-toddlers-eight-hour-tantrum-flight.html

I can see why he filmed it but for it to be put on the net is too far! I feel quite sorry for the mother she must have felt mortified

He should have been taken off the flight on the ground.

Did they think 8 more hours would calm him

He certainly doesn’t seem like a very nice person (the guy filming)

This was an awful situation, for everyone involved. The child sounds so distressed and I imagine the mother found it excruciating.

As a passenger, I would have really hated that. (As would most, I’m sure). I hate flying, don’t tolerate noise very well, and suffer from anxiety generally, so that situation would have made me feel REALLY anxious. I do always have Diazepam to hand on flights so I suspect I would have just taken extra of those in an attempt to knock myself out 😂

I would have wanted to help (and have helped strangers with children in public before) but I don’t have much experience of dealing with tantrums in non-NT children. Hell, I’m not even much good at that: my DD is NT, but her toddler tantrums verged on the ‘demonic’ at times, and we’re very difficult to halt once they were underway.

But I would have asked the mother if there was anything I could do to help. I dare say some of the passengers did that- we didn’t see the whole video after all.

Bloody hell.

That mid must have been terrified. I'm with the " unless he was going for life saving treatment..." people.

There can't be much that justifies torturing your child and a plane full of people for 8 hours.

I'm sorry but having children limits your options sometimes.

It may have been.down to the editing but the mum was a wet blanket. If her child has a disability of some sort she must have had an inkling that these kind of situations lead to meltdowns. She was completely unprepared.

That poor child must have been exhausted and terrified and was extremely lucky he didn't get hurt.

And as for the one filming it, well he's a dick. Didn't help anyone did it. I don't find a distressed child entertainment like that.

That was hard to watch. Whether it is disability or bad parenting doesn't really matter, 8 hours of screaming without a break is bad for anyone. I'm just trying to imagine what life must be like for those parents if they have that behaviour at home.

I was most surprised by the fact that none of the flight crew stoped some of the behaviour. Running around the plane can be tolerated to some extent, but sitting on top of the chair and pulling at the roof panels is a flight safety issue. What if the panel would have come down and hit people on the head?

How anyone can watch that and think that it's just a naughty child is beyond me.
The child is in a lot of distress, obviously some sort of special needs

Oh the child has SN, right that explains it. I have a dd with Asd, learning difficulties, and developmental delay, she is 11 and wod be fine in the flight. But when she was younger I could see myself going to her Paediatrician, and asking for something t relax her if I had to take a long flight. I just avoided plane travel or long journey until she was older and could cope better.

I know a lot of SN parents I know, do try to avoid situations that will make the child distressed.

It sounds like it was an awful journey, but I agree OP, he shouldn’t have filmed the child. That video has now been viewed all over the world and I don’t think you can excuse it by blurring out he child’s face. He should have just put on headphones and made the best of it, not filmed a child and posted the video on the internet with the sole purpose of humiliating the child and his mother. Nasty behaviour imo

The video is three minutes long, and was designed and posted for gain. As others have pointed out, this man has form for this.

Interesting that he started filming before takeoff, presumably unaware at that stage of the record breaking length of tantrum. But then we don’t see take off, or the child sitting strapped in during takeoff, though he must have been strapped in at that point. We only have captions to indicate the passing of time and it seems to be him who makes the ‘eight hours of screaming ‘ comment at the end.

In short, I’m not convinced it represents accurately eight hours of flight. Even in that small snapshot you can hear the mother trying to deal with issues, and see the child quieten. I am sure it was irritating, as children crying is always distressing for adults—we’re wired to want it to stop—but I’m also sure it wasn’t eight hours non stop.

This film is exploitative and a gross exaggeration I suspect, but plays well to those, like past posters, who long for straitjackets or gaffer tape when dealing with crying children.

Ive every sympathy with children with special needs if indeed that is what this child has, however 8 hours of this behaviour is enough to annoy the most placid of person.
Its not fair on the passengers or the child in question to suffer like that for 8 hours.
Id like to assume there was a very important reason for the mother to take this trip if not sadly, i do not think the rights of a special needs child trumps the rights of the other 200+ passengers on board and some intervention by the cabin crew should have been attempted, not sure what they could have done but even lip service might have been enough to appease the stress of passengers nearby who would have at least had their frustrations acknowledged.

I’m on the passenger’s side here. The boy may be disabled but his mother did virtually nothing to comfort him or keep him safe/secure. Climbing over seats and fucking around on the plan is ridiculous and she is irresponsible for allowing that to happen and not intervening. What if he fell off and hit his head particularly hard? A bit of noise from toddlers/babies is annoying but understandable - but THAT for 8 hours long is unbearable. To all the people saying use headphones and relax, high pitched screams have a way of cutting through your audio, and playing something at max volume in an attempt to drown out that atrocity will just give you a further headache. The crux of the issue is irresponsible parenting

I agree with the PP who noted interestingly how the filming began very quickly into it... presumably the filmmaker spotted something to exploit for monetary gain and rubbed hands in glee as it continued for so long.

If restraint or sedation are 'last resorts' they are acceptable here

Oh FFS. What the fuck do you think restraint would have done to the situation?

And I speak as someone whose son is regularly restrained and sedated (although funnily enough histamines work better than benzos for those wanting the vet to tranquilise) and who is involved in teaching hands on techniques to families.

I am shocked and depressed by the language used in this thread.

Possibly filming initially expecting child to be taken off. But he wasn't and the screaming just went on and on. Have any of the other passengers on the plane commented on the clip to say that it wasn't a true representation?

8 hours of screaming is not HELL. It’s a vey difficult and stressful situation,

For someone with hypereacusis/spd etc it absolutely would be hell! Unless I could block the sound completely, which would mean couldn't hear announcements/warnings/questions from flight crew/etc, I would have been in more pain than most people can imagine - and my recovery would have taken days.

I have two dc with autism and adhd. We don’t travel on a plane even for a few hours because we worry it would be too much. We drove 16 hour to Italy because we felt the youngest (5 and non verbal) wouldn’t cope. If the child does have Sen I feel for the parents but that’s a long flight for the child and for the other passengers.

Offer to help a clearly distressed passenger.

You can hear people around trying to calm the child down 'It's ok honey, your mum is there'. There probably wasn't a lot more that they could really do if the airline staff weren't able to get the child sitting down.

Offers of help generally come when the behaviour of the other person (or in this case, the mother) warrant it. If mum had been desperately trying to get her child to calm down or had explained the situation to surrounding passengers, she probably would have had a more sympathetic audience, than if she were sitting there with her earbuds in and the occasional 'calm down'. That's just human nature - people are more likely to help those who are trying to help themselves. Which way it was we will never know as all we see is what this person has chosen to film and present to the world.

I don't think he was wrong to film it if his purpose was to send a factual video (without the emotive language) to the airline and ask for some compensation or to ask what they are planning to do to assist passengers in distress in the future. He absolutely was wrong to put it on the internet. We've seen many cases of people harming themselves after being publicly shamed, and if this mother was already teetering on the edge, her child being called demonic and criticising her parenting may indeed be the last straw.

It's a shame that airlines can't install some form of sensory room on their planes, I'm sure that even passengers without a disability would find it beneficial, but I don't see them sacrificing profits in order to do so any time soon. I do think it's clear that being on a flight is not a safe or secure environment for this particular child, and I think that the impact of his behaviour on the other passengers and crew, regardless of the reason for it, should not be minimised.

Screaming like that would have made me ill. I couldn’t have tolerated it for 1 hour let alone 8. If he was kicking my seat I wouldn’t have been able to have walked off the plane. I’d have been asking the cabin crew to move me for my own health.

I’ve watched the video on here and on YouTube and the mother does nothing to soothe or settle the child. I’m surprised the aeroplane took off with them on it, it should never have done.

I too agree with Cunningart. This is shot and edited with an agenda. There is 7 hours and 56 minutes of footage missing.

Here's a comment from a DM reader:

Even at three years old couldn't the mother arrange a termination?

Fairy like a pp has said. The video has been edited. During the 7hr55mins that the man wasn't filming, the mother could have been trying to settle the child.

Unless it's medically necessary I feel that this boy shouldn't fly an airplane anymore. It is very stressful for him and the other passengers. Other passengers can and will have SN too and this might trigger them. The climbing around is dangerous for everyone close by. It looks like a dangerous situation for everyone on that plane.

odd that if you google the bloke who filmed this he is an artist.\so I would imagine the film is heavily edited to give him maximum hits(won't click on it for that reason,)so I would not take anything he said as gospel.

So the guy exploited the situation for financial gain?

Sure the other passengers were grateful for that

I say this based on the facts which has been published so may well be proven wrong as more information comes to light.
Although I sympathise with the other passengers, my real sympathy is with the child.
Imagine how distressed he must have been for that whole flight.

All of us who have kids and travel are aware their needs and try to accommodate them. DS is car sick and very anxious so I anticipate this and try and adapt for it.

Obviously we don't have the full story but the mother has a US accent and the flight was from Germany so i assume they had flown to Europe?

If he does have a disability, surely this should have been discussed with the airline so steps could be take to reduce the distress to him and the other passengers.

Guy is a turd for making and publishing the video though