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?!

When parents are trying to entertain/occupy/distract their children I am sympathetic and tolerant but it really annoys me when they do nothing, especially when it comes to safety issues.

I have taken my children on flights since they were babies and I know it is not easy, one of mine has severe learning difficulties and autism! I have always tried to keep my children occupied with activities and snacks, it's not impossible!!!

I was once on a flight where the woman behind me got into it with the flight attendant over her daughter needing to pee. The toilets were closed because landing was imminent - final descent- land becoming ever closer, whatever the official terms were. And this woman was freaking out because her daughter needed to pee, who was about 11. And the flight attendant was saying absolutely no way. And she kept saying do you want her to pee in the chair is that what you want. I felt so sorry for the flight attendant - who'd I'd imagine neither wanted her to pee in the seat or concuss herself in the toilets as the plane landed

Obviously YANBU but the issue is with the parents, not the children. I have 4 year old and a 6 year old so I’m always surrounded by young kids and by far the majority of the parents have no control over them. They never get told off, there are never any rules or consequences and the kids do exactly as they please. It’s baffling. It makes me look extremely strict by comparison even though, by the standards of any other generation, I would be considered a push over. I don’t know how grownups have ended up being controlled by small kids but it’s not good for anybody.

Strange I have never encountered that from kids on any flight I have been on and my oldest never acted like that (younger kids havent been on a plane).

The worst distraction wise is young adult parties where they expect the whole plane to be their to celebrate them, anouncing its so and sos 21st/graduation/hen do and everyone is expected to stop what they are doing and applaud, the constant asking for upgrades and free drinks and just general annoyingness as they shriek and act like tits etc...

Although my worst experiance was a guy infront of us eating boiled cabbage and sprouts. How he got them on the plane god only knows (people had apples taken off them at baggage check etc...) but the smell was ungodly, trapped in a tin can full of 10,000 rotten farts.

I think he got the message from the gagging and horrified looks and put them away but the damage was done as soon as he opened the damn thing because its not like we could crack a window and let the smell out.

Those example are pretty bad. You do need a bag of goodies packed for kids on planes.

It never bothers me if kids cry taking off or landing because it's quite a weird sensation. Also very young ones crying can't be helped if their parents are dealing with it.

My last flight, last week had massive delays. We sat on the plane waiting to take off for 2 hours and the kids on the plane coped amazingly, unlike the drunken idiot who had to have his bottle prised out his hands by cabin crew. He swore, shouted and got put of his seat during descent. Pilot threatened to abort the landing. I felt sorry for the kids exposed to that.

Eventually after constantly verbally abusing the crew, two police escorted him out of the airport , only to hand him over to his waiting friend.

Selfish fucker should have been banned from flying again.

Ejector seats , or a lever to drop into the hold.

No doubt there will be the usual humourless people that think this is a bad idea.

Were you on my flight OP because I just got back from my holiday and my dd was being a right pain on the flights.

I did apologise to my seat neighbour's, and I meant it but hope they didn’t bitch about us after the flight.

When parents are trying to entertain/occupy/distract their children I am sympathetic and tolerant

I agree

@Sweetmotherofallthatisholyabov when we took DD on her first holiday abroad when she was 5 we had a late flight back. I had to wake her up to take her to the toilet before the descent so that we didn't have this issue.

this is what I think.

but many people are really awful to you as you struggle to try to get your child to calm down. Dirty looks. Loud comments.

You’re holding an overstimulated, tired toddler in full meltdown, in a confined space, desperately trying to get them to stop shrieking and flailing around. No one on the plane would benefit more from them calming down than you. But still you always seem to seated next to the judgemental arseholes rather than the reasonable people.

Of course, the people who don’t try make the problem worse. Too often people have seen parents who just can’t be arsed to look after their own kids on public transport. So they treat everyone as if they are just ignoring the child and haven’t tried their best to make sure this didn’t happen.

Depends on the child...

I saw this post and thought "Oh here we go another none parent not happy about kids making some noise on flights".

I apologise. These parents are dicks and YANBU. I'm a parent of 3 and my children sit quietly on the plane (since 2/3 now teenagers) and I wouldn't take them again if they didn't. The worst one of those are the wet parents of the kid during landing as that's also Dangerous for her child and others. My kid would be told pick your seat now for landing you will NOT be getting up to move once I've fastened your seat belt and that would be that. Also sounds like crappy parents totally unorganised for travelling with young children.

With parents 'pussyfootying'/not disciplining according to your expectation, you don't know whether they're doing that because they know that anything further would trigger a massive screaming/hitting meltdown in the child that would be even noisier

I have only ever experienced badly behaved adults rather than children when flying.

Loud, drunk, fidgety, moaning etc.

I usually take earplugs, eye mask and on occasion a sleeping pill.

I only read as far as this post and thought "Yeah, that just about sums it up"...

Pretty sure most people have no issue with a parent who is at least trying to keep their kids occupied or not putting up with any messing. It’s the ones who sit and ignore their kids or let them do what they want, who are the annoying ones.

I was on a flight back from Doha - 7 hour night flight. Within 20 minutes of the flight taking off, we had a 3 year old running up and down the aisles, making loads of noise and poking people. It was really annoying, as we all wanted to sleep. In the end, I got up and led the child back to his parents. Cheeky fuckers were fast asleep! They got told in no uncertain terms to deal with their child and stop letting him keep the whole plane awake.

Yawn...

I had an annoying kid next to me on a long haul flight, his mum on the other side of him. He kept jumping around, made me spill my coffee, ripped my headphones out, knocked my book out of my hand etc. I kept telling the mum to get control of him. She ignored me. So i started teaching him swear words. I started with things like fart and bloody, got to fuck before she swapped places with him. Turned out his dad was on the other side but "wanted to read in peace". I really wish i'd got as far as cunt though. Because i wanted to look her in the eye and say it.

i feel your pain, OP, but just for balance, today I travelled on an Avanti West Coast train. 4 very loud women; one sharing a phone call in which I learnt enough about her company and its clients to be able to identify both, second and 3rd sharing how they were campaigning for menopause exemptions (clearly not realising they were putting the cause of women in the workplace back about 40 years), and 4th just being shouty at her child, who was doing nothing
So yes, kids can be a nightmare travelling, but let's be realistic, they are copying the behaviour of revolting and obnoxious adults

Quite possibly, but that's because these children know that a screaming meltdown gets their own way. I see it in the kids I work with when they first come to us and it takes a while to learn that a screaming meltdown will get them nothing. When they understand that ..... Guess what? They stop.

YANBU @Ace56 but I imagine you’ll get jumped on. Or excuses made “Oh flying is sooooo difficult for children” and that sort of crap

@NeedAHoliday2021 how awful, I hope your dd was ok. It's like that man who wouldn't stop eating nuts despite the girl being dangerously ill.

Just like travelling in the car, or on the bus, or on the train, there are rules for safety that MUST be obeyed. (Car - seat belts. Bus/train - sitting down where possible, holding on when standing or moving. No distracting driver in any mode.) Plane - seatbelts for takeoff/landing/turbulence/sleep, sitting in seats generally unless needing bathroom or there is a quiet time to take a walk (we've done pretty long haul so some walking is needed even for adults), and just like bus/train - no messing with other passengers or disturbing them by kicking seats etc.

Shame previous generations haven't done this. I'm a Londoner & my entire life have experienced adults who cannot behave on public transport. Thinking about many adults struggle to even use a bathroom respectfully let alone appropriate times of when to go!

Thing is, with young children who’ve never flown before or haven’t flown for a year or so, how are you supposed to know whether they’ll be a total nightmare on a plane. It’s a weird, noisy, pressurised environment. You don’t know in advance that will send them into toddler meltdown. Even if they’ve been ok on a train or something. Or are fine in the car. You don’t know that your lunchtime flight to encompass nap time will turn out to be a horrible idea because they are just overtired and won’t sleep in the weird environment. You discover this stuff in the air when all you can do is try to stay calm and help them through it.

There is often a parenting perspective bias at play in these things. Where people haven’t experienced their small child doing this stuff, they tend to attribute it to their brilliant parenting rather than luck or chance. Where they see others whose children are doing it, they attribute that to their poor parenting (rather than luck or chance). But when it does happen to them in some way, it’s a product of poor circumstances (so luck or chance).

Mostly, if you see someone trying to deal with difficult children on a plane, it’s usually worth remembering that they are having a shit time and would generally prefer to not be dealing with it either. If they could make their child sit quietly and watch something on a tablet, they would.

Depends on their ages no sen issues I'd expect up to about age 3 to be nightmares. My DD has always been ok flying apart from the last 1.5 hours of a 15 hour flight where she cried. A German couple kept moaning and groaning she was 18 months old it couldn't be helped and we tried to comfort her. The couple were just arseholes. She's now 8 and does long haul flight she was absolutely brilliant no concerns with behaviour.

Or they have ASD.......

And there's the problem, right there...