Aibu on flight

[perroy]

I was on an plane today. Family of four were travelling. One child with father in the seat in front of me and mother with another child in the seat behind me. Children were shouting, beeping a fictitious horn, making motor noises all through the flight. The parents were tickling them and making them squeal with laughter. It was a plane full of children and this family was noisy throughout the flight. All the other children had settled down in some time.

After the fifth time the child with the mother had got up on his seat and squealed in my ear I turned around and said SSSh quiet to the child.

The mother used profanities, showed me the finger and told me her child was only two.

Was I wrong to address the child when the parents were not taking any efforts to settle the children?

I don't know op but I bet you're glad you're safe at home now. Put it behind you.

Maybe if the parents had been encouraging inside voices, the incident wouldn’t have happened and the OP wouldn’t have had to tell the child to hush. Why shouldn’t she have said ‘shhh’ when the parents were doing nothing to prevent them disrupting other people around them?
Should we tiptoe around telling kids/parents just on the off chance they may happen to have special needs? It’s so pathetic and precious this attitude that children and their parents can do no wrong and the rest of us have to just suck it up. Where’s your concern for the OP who was given abuse in return for a simple ‘shhhh’?! Disgusting. Grow up.

This attitude is everything that's wrong with the world. Special needs families should never travel lest they might disturb a precious self-important adult?

YOU need to grow up. You can't just tell a special needs to child to shut up, I'm glad you've never had the experience of dealing with a meltdown. No one knows why that family was traveling, and no one has the right to act as an authoritarian against them. If it was a big enough issue, then the flight staff would have handled it but they may have had more information than this woman. Nasty people need to mind their own business.

FFS! If the useless selfish dicks of parents were the type to permit their child to squeal into someone’s ear, then I doubt they would have responded any differently if the OP had asked them to try to control their child. As for the ‘how dare you speak to my child’ brigade, keep your child entertained by all means but not at the expense of other people’s comfort. I have tinnitus and my adult child have SN and sensory issues. Good for you OP, YWNU. I guarantee the same ones ranting about the OP daring to do the mother’s job of asking her child to calm down (because she was bloody failing at it) are the seams ones that think ‘it takes a village’. 🙄

Special needs families should never travel lest they might disturb a precious self-important adult?
There’s absolutely no evidence this child had special needs 😂😂 stop projecting

I don't understand how it's relevant but not a budget airline

I have tinnitus and my adult child have SN and sensory issues.

If your son reacted badly in public, I hope people would show you more sympathy than you are showing now rather than to publicly judge you.

What on earth is wrong with saying shush to a child?

I have a toddler. I can't imagine why it would matter. She's quite used to it - she goes to nursery; I'm not the only adult in her life. What's the problem?

TBH, though, I think you're being daft to frame this in terms of appropriate behaviour around children. On a flight, you risk all sorts of anti-social behaviour. It could have been a pissed football team or a hen party or whatever. It happened to be a family, and clearly they weren't that interested in how you felt.

I think you need to shrug and chalk it up to the pitfalls of sharing a space with strangers. That's all it is.

@SiberianCake you’re the type of parent who would march into school demanding an apology from any teacher who dared to give your kid a detention 😂

YANBU - the parents should make sure their children are better behaved and considerate of others. I often flew alone with my DC's. They wouldn't be standing on seats, shouting, annoying others but sat, entertained in their seats.

Arf at the outrage at telling a toddler screeching directly in your ear to shhh! You can see where all the brats running riot come from.
And we’ve already done the “might have special needs” shite too, I see

There’s absolutely no evidence this child had special needs 😂😂 stop projecting

Because it's so obvious?? Do you get every child's diagnosis paperwork handed to you when you board a plane??? My God, what bullshit.

If people can't trust their kids to stfu and behave then they shouldn't be taking them on flights and inflicting their annoying behaviour on other people in the first place.

Good for you. It would have annoyed the crap out of me and I'd probably have done the same.

Have to say 4 pages in edits special needs were mentioned, but slow for MN, what next the mum has MH issues?
There are some crazy parents on here, saying they’d get violent if someone shh their child? No wonder everywhere you go there’s hideous screaming brats. What’s that child led ignorance?

you’re the type of parent who would march into school demanding an apology from any teacher who dared to give your kid a detention 😂

No, I'm the type of parent who has a SN child who knows other parents of SN children who never leave their homes because they are scared of public reaction from absolute self-important cunts.

Next time op take something me decent headphones with you and drown out this shit.

Oh I’m also getting really bored with the special needs shouting - some parents are just shit and selfish

YWVMNBU (very much!) - but I may not be the most tolerant of people. I have actually shushed people on the train. In the quiet car, on the phone long and loud. Stink eye failed, despite my head about swiveling off of my neck. Finger on lips, and SHHHHHHHH. It worked. Several people around me clapped, one or two had looks of utter shock. Nobody told me to mind my own business. It was a good day.

Now I shall Shhhh.

@SiberianCake again, you’re not acknowledging how poorly the mother reacted and instead you’re just banging on about potential special needs when actually there’s no evidence at all that suggests the kid was anything other than poorly behaved.
So basically we should ignore any bad behaviour/lack of discipline just in case the person has special needs? Any time anyone does anything wrong, we should assume they have special needs and let them get away with it?

YWNBU, Children seem to have no manners nowadays, and the parents are usually even worse.

If people can't trust their kids to stfu and behave then they shouldn't be taking them on flights and inflicting their annoying behaviour on other people in the first place.

Such an ignorant thing to say. Some people travel because loved ones are dying in foreign countries, because they need medical treatment, or because they deserve a holiday too.

What if an adult passenger was autistic and had the child screaming in their ear. I know a couple of autistic adults who would find this behaviour very distressing and could respond aggressively?

@SiberianCake I’m starting to think you’re trolling us because you’re not actually taking anything in other than this whole special needs thing when actually it was just a 2 year old kid whose parents didn’t tell him off.

SiberianCake
Oh get off your high horse, this isn’t about you!

Nothing wrong with telling a child to ssh. I have 3, very loud, dc. They just naturally have loud voices and the twins are always trying to out-shout each other. I make sure they are quiet when we’re in public. It’s not fair on other people to have to put up with them. They know they need to use their quiet voices when in public.

I grew up when it was normal to be told off by complete strangers if you were misbehaving. I didn’t have a problem with it then and I don’t now

again, you’re not acknowledging how poorly the mother reacted and instead you’re just banging on about potential special needs when actually there’s no evidence at all that suggests the kid was anything other than poorly behaved.

There's no evidence to suggest contrary. Do you personally know this child?

So basically we should ignore any bad behaviour/lack of discipline just in case the person has special needs?

You can't just discipline special needs out of a child. What you may see as a lack of discipline may be coping mechanisms that the mother has been taught.

Any time anyone does anything wrong, we should assume they have special needs and let them get away with it?

What are you going to do to them? Why is it your right to discipline a stranger's child? There's no such thing as letting them "get away with it" if they don't understand.