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?!

Presumably they’ve converted their shed into a proper simulator for the weirdly unique plane environment too. 🤣🤣🤣

I always flew alone with my young DC’s. They were taught from their first flight, the expectations of being on a plane. You are not allowed out of your seat ( I actually told them they had to keep the seat belt on), you need to sit still, you need to talk quietly. They had headphones, some nibbles, some books and a comfort toy. They didn’t ever question the rules and expectations.

What ever? Not even a question? It's good to learn appropriate behaviour but I think it's not good to be so passive.

I wouldn't let mine run riot but I can see why you might just not have the energy after a long trip.

Tough titty - parents should parent their child whether they have the energy to or not. Other people without children may also not have energy after a long trip and just want to rest. Why should a parent's sapped energy take precedent over those without children who need a rest?

@BrokenRice or the dining room table apparently, peak MNs! 🤣

Those without kids don’t matter, duh. They’d get it if they had children themselves, silly little dears.

Completely agree.

Kids will get bored during flights but the blame for most of their bad behaviour falls completely on useless, lazy parents who make no effort to keep their kids occupied and who make no attempt to tell them off for unacceptable behaviour.

I seems to be mainly a very British problem too. I never understand why so many parents just let their kids run riot on planes without doing anything.

problem with taking a toddler for one walk down the aisle is that one walk is never enough for a toddler. You end up walking the kid for hours crouched over, your back hurting, getting in other people's way, the kid stopping and grabbing at people he passes. Not great. Best to stay in your seat with the toddler.

Personally I'm happy for a toddler to walk up the aisle to where I am as long as they're not running or hitting people, or screaming blue murder. I'm more than happy to have a friendly 5 min chat with an inquisitive toddler if it's a day flight. As long as the parent is properly supervising and teaching the child how to interact with others, and takes the child away from anyone who is not into it, and takes them back to their seat at the appropriate times eg if the staff are having to walk up and down at that point. It's the parent who needs to teach the child the appropriate behaviour. i.e. don't let your child stand there shouting at a row where someone is clearly trying to sleep. I've witnessed the right way to do it and I've also witnessed the situations which would have Supernanny rolling her eyes.

It by no means has a 100% success rate, but I do actually find talking to my three year old in advance about how he's expected to behave really helpful. We started doing it for church (when he was just turned three), where he was clearly confused about what he could and couldn't do, but it helped so much that we do it for lots of situations - he went through a stage of saying every time he walked past the local cafe 'we can talk in there but we don't shout!'. I realised I'd previously been expecting him to know how to behave in each setting by observing others or by just telling him off when he got it wrong, which is bonkers really but seems to be what most other parents do too. He's by no means an angel and it can all go wrong on the day but prepping him with good behaviour expectations isn't mad, it really helps.

If it makes you feel any better, (statistically) 50% of those parents from the plane will end up divorcing anyway due to the strain the kids have put on their relationship/marriage. For you it was just an annoying flight. For half of those kids, it will probably be one of the last trips they remember as a family.

Someone let their kid stand in the aisle for landing 😯

Yanbu. I was next to some parents that put the work in. Interacted. Activities. Good effort. That’s what we did (though chose not to fly until they were school age - too much like hard work).

I remember many years ago when my two eldest were small taking them on a plane. Fine on the way there. On the way back I had my youngest on my lap as she was under 2 and she fell asleep, the kid behind us kicked the back of my seat until she woke up. I turned round and told his parents to stop their son kicking my seat. They looked confused and made some half hearted attempts but he did it the entire way home.
Luckily I managed to calm DD down so she wasn't screaming the whole time but I was majorly pissed off with those parents.

@User34352515 what? I’m assuming you’re joking here 😂

@Hardbackwriter so in June you're prepping your child for a flight in August....... not 45 mins to an hour in church (possibly achievable), but a. 2-3 hour flight? Agreed being in queues for passport control, queues for baggage drop off, queues for boarding. Do let me know how you prep your three year old for that.

Other people are annoying on planes, whatever their age. I bring noise cancelling headphones and an eye mask so I can ignore them.

Wow, how tall is he?! My DH is 6 foot 6 inches and always sits with me and DC, I'd not want to parent alone for hours on end. He fits fine into regular seats, I'm now curious to know where the height cut-off is.

Amazing how many Dads manage to sit across the aisle, a few rows in front or in an exit seat

Isn't that what this is about? The bad adult behaviour that allows the bad child behaviour?

I had a seat kicker behind me on a flight once - he was probably about 8. When I turned round and asked him politely to stop, his dad said weakly "Max, don't do that mate" which had no effect whatsoever. I don't need to be a parent to have a right to be critical of that.

I had a seat kicker behind me all the way from SE Asia to Sydney (the long boring tiring bit of the journey).

Every time I dozed off WHACK straight in the small of my back. It started to actually hurt. I turned around and asked his mother to stop him kicking. She got really arsey and said "He's only 5 you know".

The thing was, they had 3 seats between the 2 of them, so she could just have moved him.

But no ...

That's why I give NO fucks about whether or not the child is"distressed" or too young, or whatever. Bad parenting gets no benefit of the doubt from me.

That is exactly what nursery teachers do. How else would they control an entire class of them? Perhaps a few posters on this thread should consider that sometimes it really IS a lack of parenting skills or effort that is the main issue.

@CurlyhairedAssassin that's fine for short term behaviour, not some random event in august!

Well, I did fly with him (and his baby brother) last September, when he was three and a few months and it was ok! And I don't think I started two months ahead but I did talk to him a lot beforehand about planes - he'd never been on one before - both about how cool and exciting they are, but also about what you can and can't do on one. I explained the seatbelt light, for instance. He didn't then behave perfectly as a result - the biggest disaster was completely unforeseeable, which is that he got travel sick and vomited on himself as we landed - but it helped a lot that I wasn't explaining it all for the first time on-board the plane. I don't see why attempting to prepare a child for a big new experience and set some expectations is worthy of mockery (I actually think it's pretty poor not to do it).

@KvotheTheBloodless he's 6'7. He get crippling stomach pain after flights when he doesn't have the extra legroom. His height is mostly in his torso. His legs aren't that long really.

The kids obviously aren't allowed in the exit row so I told him to have that seat and I'd sit with the kids. Having seen how bad that pain is, id rather parent alone for 1 flight that for several days if he's laid up after.

Plus I know if I really needed him to he'd swap with me for a bit or take one of them for a walk around the plane.

if distraction doesn’t work for a seat kicker, the appropriate parental response is to physically block the kicking. Again, being a parent of a young child on a plane is exhausting.

They are not.