To expect people to be able to control their children on planes?

[Ace56]

I recently returned from a long haul trip with connecting flights, so was on 5 planes altogether.

On 4 of these flights I was around children who’s parents just seemed to pussyfoot around them and seemed unable to control them.

Flight 1 - mum and 2 kids in the row in front of me. Dad across the aisle, plonks himself down on his laptop for the entire flight. Little boy (around 2-3) EXTREMELY loud, continuous shrieking, disrupting his sister. They had brought nothing for him to do - no iPad/colouring/books, so no wonder he was bored. Just shrieked constantly to get mum’s attention. Dad did absolutely nothing to help, didn’t offer to take him. Neither took him for a walk down the aisle or anything - he literally was in his seat the entire flight, absolutely bored shitless and disturbing everyone around him.

Flight 2 - girl of about 3 sitting behind me, next to mum. Dad across the aisle. Was fine during the flight but kept switching between mum and dad, and taking it in turns to sit on their lap watching her iPad. When it came to landing, she still wanted to switch every few mins. Air hostess politely told them a few times that she needs to be seated now for landing. Parents meekly tried to make her sit still with one of them but eventually gave up, so for the actual landing she ended up in the aisle (very dangerous) with mum holding onto her T-shirt. Air hostesses were seated at this point so couldn’t do anything/didn’t notice.

Flight 3 - boy of about 5 in front of me, standing up in his seat, leaning back into the seat, generally jumping around. Mum apologised but made no real attempt to stop him.

Flight 4 - large extended family sitting in various places around the plane. Children allowed to shout at each other across rows and over people’s heads, not told to stop once.

AIBU to despair at parenting these days if this is the norm? Have other people come across situations like this or was I just very unlucky?!

This one family had four kids. Mum was sat with another family rows away. The dad opened up a bag of laptop leads and headphones, doled them out. Didn’t notice when the youngest stood up as we were taking off and started wandering up aisle. All of us women were on our feet practically about to shriek when the mum, a few seats up, shouted orders at him from her seat. Luckily his older brother got him back in his seat and strapped him in. I don’t get it. I was there with my two but we make sure they’re supervised at the very least! Same family, bit later, kid nearly loses a finger on carousel.

I assure you as someone who has worked with ASD adults I do know this, and I think others do too. No one has said ASD is an excuse to let children do what they want, just that they can be harder to control/keep calm and quiet. An adult with ASD should understand that (although I have met a few who are so absorbed in their own ASD they don't care about others ASD, adult or child).

I think it unlikely to be as bad as you've described. It's extremely unlucky to see it on 5 consecutive flights over the space of 24 hrs. Or have I misread your op? I'm not saying it doesn't happen. I have seen evidence of it. I'm saying that I think it's likely you are exaggerating. You still haven't qualified if you have children yourself. Perhaps you are lacking in tolerance as you are not a parent, and therefore exaggerating the behaviour of the children/parents.

YANBU.

Feckless parents on flights who don't seem to be aware of anyone but themselves and their annoying kids drive me mad.

We always flew long haul with ours from when they were babies onwards, but we made every effort to keep them occupied and quiet.

Flights to and from Florida, we paid for extra legroom seats but the plane was swapped and we ended up in the middle of the plane with ignorant arseholes using our space as a shortcut.

The 8 year old who every ten minutes wandered between his parents on either side of us was a pain in the arse. He was told fairly sharpish to stop. His dad tried to tell me he could do that and tried to stare me down. Unluckily for them I had raging PMT so was in no mood for fuckwits. Dad tried his luck with the cabin crew who agreed it was my space and not an aisle so he could walk around.

Then there was the family with mum, dad and 3 kids. Dad did fuck all and kept saying to mum well what do you want me to do? He didn't appreciate my response of I think I speak for everyone in the area when I say she wants you to actually parent your children. Mum thought it was funny though.

The toddlers behind us were delightful and very sweet and well behaved luckily!

A few years ago on a flight from the canaries dad had packed the nappy bag and forgot the wipes, snacks and calpol. Mum was so grateful with my 'mary poppins childminder bag'. Every time she looked for something he eas all oh should i not have put that in the hold? Oh sorry. And I'd just pass the required item back! They did buy me a drink and their little one was utterly gorgeous and delightful!

Tbh, the worst behaviour I’ve witnessed on flights have all been perpetrated by full grown adults!

It's almost as if, when they were kids they weren't parented properly, isn't it 🙄🤔

I was on a flight home a few weeks ago and the parents sat across from me couldn't get their toddler to sit down properly ready for takeoff. The flight attendant asked them three times to make sure their child was sat with seat belt on. The mother kept saying that she only wanted to look out of the window. Eventually they got her belted in while the toddler had a bit if a cry about it, but as soon as the flight attendant went to her own seat the mother unbelted the child and let her stand on her knee so she could see out of the window while the plane took off.

I recently took the first ever plane trip with my
pandemic baby, she was 22 months old at the time. I was 30 weeks pregnant and stressed out so much about preparing for this flight. She had a bunch of colouring books, a magnetic toy thing, a water colouring book where you have water in the pen and draw to reveal the colours, a fidget cube, lots of snacks, iPad with a bunch of cartoons, her own headphones, etc. She was amazing the whole flight and all the distractions worked wonders! The ONLY time she was loud was at takeoff when I had to force her to sit in my lap strapped into the seatbelt. To be fair with my belly she was probably just uncomfortable, and overwhelmed at the first experience of a plane. YANBU.

My son is tall for his age and very friendly most of the time. People assume he is older than he is and have told me he is, as well as telling me he is spoiled because he screams when told no. It is no one's business that my son has ASD and I am not telling a stranger just so they are sympathetic. I told him no or to stop and why. I tried to calm him down. That should be enough, but in my experience there is always someone who judges hard. Those people are the reason we don't travel as much as we could, and why I know people who don't go anywhere at all, even the local zoo, because they are tired of ignorant judgy people who say thing like 'children like that should not be allowed here.'

To add - my partner wasn't able to make it on the trip so I had to travel alone with her :D

I am not looking forward to a long flight with 3yr old Dd we have coming up 🙈 apologies in advance to anyone sharing the plane with us. Am tempted to get her kiddy headphones and plug her into a screen for a bit. Other passengers are going to have to listen to me reading the frog prince and a bazillion times.

Would really like it if we could stop with the incessant narrative that it’s only childless people with their inherent lack of tolerance who find this annoying. There have been many parents on the thread who have said the same thing. Tolerance is not something that’s reserved to parents, and if anything I think it’s over-attributed, as many parents who preach tolerance are only talking about people having it for their kids, they don’t practice it themselves by having tolerance for those who can’t abide the noise and disruption, for example. That’s not being tolerant, it’s being self-centred.

My DC is by no means an angel or even a particularly well-behaved child (despite my efforts). But the ipad comes out every time we travel, he is plugged in with earphones, snacks are passed every now and again and generally we (and everyone around us) hardly hears a whimper from him.

Being honest, the best children to travel next to are those who are plugged into a screen (with headphones). That generally keeps those who are around 3 or over occupied. I don't mind 'actively parented' children who are being read stories and played with either, but they do make more noise and cause more disturbance than those on screens. There is a time and place for screen time limits and imo it's not on flights 😁!

I used to be a teaching assistant in an after art school class.
At least half the children in the class of 5 and 6 year olds , had parents who were Russia or from Eastern Europe.
It was a real eye opener to me . I saw a noticeable difference in the behaviour of those children and very much in the expectations of the parents of the child’s work.
The parents of the Russian kids invariably ‘ reminded’ them to behave at the beginning of each class and in serious way. Their behaviour and concentration was way better than the English kids. Their work was usually so much of a better standard it was embarrassing when we displayed it. . If a child’s work was not as good as the parent expected , the child was sometimes told it wasn’t good by the parent. They didn’t pull the punches but their kids work was amazing and they were able to knuckle down and sit down and work for the entire class , where as many of the English kids were flicking paint at each other or painting their own tongues lol

I believe that parents should try and understand that children get bored and in a confined space that's going to be difficult. Therefore bring distractions toys, food, games, computers with games films etc. Your children are your responsibility not other passengers or flight crew. My children and grandchildren are no angels but I always made sure that they understood the importance of behaving when on a flight. You are not being unreasonable to expect that type of parenting.

This definitely this!!
. My own mother judges me for parenting. It is what it is. Kids need to be taught right from wrong the earlier the better. They will scream and shout flip out but as soon as they realise nothing is changing they'll soon back down.

You were one of the pathetic parents on OP’s flights aren’t you?

Erm , yea it fucking is !

Sometimes controlling kids in that situtation can be hard, but I would at least expect the parents to try

I remember once doing a flight back from Hong Kong as crew in economy. A night flight. One 14 month old screamed and cried all night. All the other babies around were disturbed. Some mothers brought their babies into the galley mid flight to try and get them away from the screaming. I’ve never known a baby cry like that. We asked the mother if she needed anything or wanted to come into the galley for a change of scene, but she said no. On landing and disembarkment, the queue stopped with her at the galley. The toddler was then falling asleep on her shoulder (isn’t it always the way!). A little old Chinese lady pulled a sympathetic face at the mother and made a crying sign with her fists at her eyes. The mother went crazy. “My child has been so good, I’m so proud of how she’s travelled. What is this woman on about!!” I literally couldn’t find a word to say, just stood there with my mouth open, as did everyone else that spoke English!

i dont get people its not soft play its public transport and an expensive one at that

if the plane had some sort of ergency that kid in the op would have been thrown about the plane possibly being killed or hurting someone else-if you cant control your dc dont go on a plane

I dont expect parents to have perfect control over kids or that children will be completely silent and free of tantrums. But I do expect them to be prepared and to work to minimize the effect of their children on others. Saw a kid today kicking his football really hard against the side of the cafe kiosk repeatedly and then kicking it at the ducks. Parents just watched. Arseholes.

kids in the aisle on landing yeah perfectily normal

Its often not as simple as it seems, my son has suspected ASD, if he’s challenged or “told off” in a firm manner he will meltdown.

The best way to keep him calm is the gently, gently approach. On a plane I would imagine we would seem incredibly passive if he started being disruptive.

In most situations we would take him away, for example out of a restaurant, shop. On a plane we would have no choice but to make the best of it.

Of course not all children who display disruptive behaviour have any additional needs, but as you never know I find it best to try not to judge.

We were on a short haul flight a baby at the side of us was crying we did not say anything when the plane landed the front started emptying when it got to our turn my husband said are we getting up i said lets wait for the family (the one with the crying baby) to get off they weren't moving so we quickly got up well the mother started shouting at us saying we were selfish we did not respond we were in the passport control queue she kept saying my bloods boiling my bloods boiling how rude her two male companions ignored her as we did when we were out of the terminal and getting on the bus i turned around she was outside the terminal smoking she saw me and stuck two fingers up and growled at me i just smiled at her wow i said what a horrible end to a lovely holiday