I, too, am from a generation before “Pwecious Little Ruby could do no wrong.” My dad spanked me once. Only once. But I was never ever disrespectful or a brat because I knew I would be In Trouble[sup]TM[/sup]. I respected my parent’s authority, I was not their friend. I was the kid, they were the boss. Absolutely no one is saying that spanking a screaming child on a plane is the answer. However, restraining a wild banshee child from being disruptive is indeed the issue.
Shame on SWA for refunding their money.
ETA: Why is there no video on airplanes? City busses have multiple camera angles of every position on the bus in the event of an accident or disruption.
I’m not sure exactly what sort of physical method silenus is advocating. However, although my mother never had a single problem busting my butt, she could alter her smack down to suit the situation. So, in something like this if a spanking wasn’t feasible, she’d have sunk her nails / fingertips so deep into my arms that there would be whelps for weeks and would wash, rinse and repeat as necessary. With a few extras thrown in for good measure if necessary.
Needless to say, any tactic she took usually only required one application, but there is more than one way to skin a cat. Or harsh the buzz on a determinedly unruly child. In my humble opinion.
Cough syrup with an antihistamine in it works wonders, I’ve been told.
[/bitch mode]
As several folks have said, you reap what you sow when it comes to raising a child. I feel sorry for the other people on the plane and the flight crew that had to put up with that crap.
There’s a Charles Addams cartoon (involving his famous family), in which Morticia answers the door to find a stoic-looking delivery man hoisting two oversized pet carriers with faces peering out from behind the mesh doors.
Watching that video, I’m no expert, but it seems as tho that one kid has to be a pretty high-functioning autistic, and the kid with CP is far from debilitated. Kinda wonder why the existence of a diagnosable medical condition is necessarily relevant.
I didn’t take many plane trips with my kids when they were young, but I do remember standing in the vestibule of a train when my daughter was being too loud, and I remember leaving a store when she threw a fit. I imagine on a plane I would physically restrain a child and put my hand over their mouth if need be - such as in a very small child’s “meltdown.” Tho usually rocking, hugging, singing, food, distraction would render such measures unnecessary. Further, the kids in the video look old enough to be beyond the “meltdown” stage.
I think while quite young kids are capable of quite a bit more than they are given credit for. And one of the main things my kids were able to learn is that above all else do not cause a huge scene in public. Basically, they had a choice. If they simply did not act like hellspawn, they would get all kinds of favorable treatment, simply by not being little shits. But if they chose to let themselves get out of control, there would be a HUGE price to pay. They could inconvenience and embarrass us in brief public settings where they had some power due to the public nature of the situation. But they would quickly learn that in just about every other area of life their parents had it in their power to either dispense or withhold all kinds of niceties.
I think SWA was generous in refunding the money to this family. Perhaps this experience will encourage the parents to disciple thier children a little better. In watching the video, IMO that the autistic kid was the best behaved of the whole group!
I’ve been following this thread with interest. Very early on I was going to post something like eleanorigby said, but thought better. So now my 2 cents.
I once had a Childrens’ Aid worker tell me “your kids are scared of you when you’re angry.”
Good! I said. “Then I’m doing my job.”
This is the same snot-nosed, fresh out of school, 20-something chick who told me hitting was not an appropriate method of discipline.
Like fuck it’s not. My kids are 9 and 10 now. I haven’t had to spank them in years and they are absolutely wonderfully behaved. Fuck this “I’m your friend” bullshit. I’m your parent. Oh, we can be friends. But you better believe that I make the rules, and you follow them.
ETA: Nice job SWA. So, I’ll let my kids run amok now on planes. Get kicked off, and expect to be reimbursed. :rolleyes:
I do give the parents slack. What you seemed to have done is personalize the thread’s response to your own situation. The kids on the SWA were nothing like what you described for your own child. We’ve been at cross purposes all along.
If I had been sitting near you, I might have sent sympathetic grimaces or even offered to distract your kid. When #2 son screamed due to his ears on that flight, I got several bitchy comments (“shut up him” was one of the nicer ones) and they hurt. I was embarrassed, harassed but mostly worried about #2 son–I had no idea what was wrong except that his ears hurt. It’s not something I would want to do again.
I was on my soapbox about these SWA kids and the “parents” who let them run amok. Just the fact that they were confident enough to run about a plane speaks volumes re the “parenting”–these kids are not parented.
I am fed to the backteeth by moms (and dads) letting their kids get away with murder in public. I see it every time I grocery shop, and the mall is kid hell. Why a mom thinks Jr will want to stay strapped in a stroller all day while she shops with a girlfriend is beyond me.
You must get these 18 things at the mall? Ok, then involve your kid in the expedition–don’t drag him or her around like s/he’s dead weight and keep feeding them crap from the food court when they fuss. Kid’s had no nap, no activity, no playtime and mom expects him or her to behave. It’s ridiculous. It’s that kind of “parenting” that makes me see red, not the ones who are in the trenches, trying to do their best under less than ideal circumstances. The SWA parents were not trying their best (or if they were, they need remediation in parenting 101).
I don’t believe in spanking or smacking, but I do believe in intimidation and promises aka consequences (not threats–never make a threat you can’t/won’t carry out). That said, I have swatted 2 of my kids on a single occasion each: both involved a child running out into a street or parking lot. Since I never hit my kids, this light swat through a diaper made an impression.
Pick your battles and stick with them, but also remember what it was like to be little with little to no control over any of your life or choices. (this is for the under Kindergarten set). Also, try to remember what it’s like to be that young and to not understand the world and to fear it a bit (or to be clueless of what you should fear or both)–and that applies from crawling to college.
I am sorry that SWA reimbursed them the money. No doubt they’ll soon be on Oprah, sobbing about how horrid it all was for the poor special children. Ok, that’s a bit venomous, but there are plenty of parents quietly getting on with the extra difficult task of raising handicapped kids–these parents could take a lesson (or 5) from them.
This may soon be a thing of the past since Homland Security is considering putting shock bracelets on all passengers which can also trace where you are at all times.
Judiciously applied pain does not necessarily equal hitting a 2 year old. This is the response that I object to. This isn’t a thread about the pros and cons of parental corporal punishment. It’s a thread about controlling the inappropriate behavior of a child. How the parents choose to do that is another thread entirely.
I don’t want to try and put workds into Silenus’ mouth, I am fairly sure he would tell that teaching a child right from wrong, and acceptable vs unacceptable behavior is not a project you embark on as you walk down the jetway. Rather is it something you have worked on with your children day after day trip into public after trip into public. A quick pop on the ass can be a great motivator.
Both of my kids had exactly one meltdown in public.
In my son’s case it was a hissy fit in the supermarket at the age of 2. I told him no and he went into full on scream/cry/fall on the floor hissy fit.
I picked him up and took him to the car. I buckled him into his car seat (still screaming) and told him I would not let him disturb the other shoppers. I sat in the front and read a book without saying a word. (Funny how you can ignore the crying of your own child, but other people’s kids crying drive you nuts.)
After about 5 minutes he ran out of steam, and stopped.
I asked him if he was ready to act like a gentleman, and he said yes.
I unbuckled him and took him back inside. The funny thing was he never tried to pitch a fit again. I wonder why.
I don’t know about the kids in the article, but I will bet that they have spent a lot more time in the mall or the supermarket then they have on an airplane. Had they been raised right, there would have been no problem on that flight.
Please review. I said what silenus recommended would not work on an airplane when the kid was melting down. I do not object to corporal punishment, nor did I address the rights or wrongs of corporal punishment. How you choose to control your kid is just fine with me. What’s not fine with me is saying that because a kid melts down loudly on an airplane, the parents are at fault. (We’re talking about noise, not kids running up and down the aisles, in case you missed that.) Please go read what I wrote, and you may gather that I made remarks that a) kids melt down sometimes, and b) sometimes there’s little a conscientious parent might do about it on a plane in flight. When you find where I tried to make the thread strictly about how to discipline a child, or about corporal punishment, please let me know.
Some parents are very good disciplinarians without having to resort to hitting. Some parents who choose to hit do it while they are angry themselves and lose contol. Then it becomes abuse. Abused children too often become hostile and abusing adults.
Some of you talk as if inflicting physical pain on your children is a necessary part of teaching good behavior. It’s not. It may work out okay if it’s not too rough. But I just see too many parents who seem to get a gleam in their eyes when they talk about busting their children’s butts.
The “take 'em out of the way then ignore the tantrum” technique works a lot better on my second daughter now that she’s heading for three than when she was just gone two.
These days it only takes around 15 - 30 minutes before she runs out of steam. Also, you have to be careful not to speak to or look at her in the 5 - 10 minutes after that, since that triggers a resumption in hostilities. So 20 - 40 minutes for full application.
When she was just gone two, it was more like two hours then she falls asleep. Funnily enough I didn’t tend to use that technique very often at that stage in her life. I wonder why.
I’d have needed my head read if I tried it on a plane.
Of course, since we all seem to aree that the important thing in the plane is that they’re strapped down, the point is moot anyway. Two-year-olds can be held in place quite straightforwardly.
Mine could EASILY go forty minutes. She’s grown out of it. At her worst, her behavior wasn’t predictable or frequent enough to be able to run our lives around it. And what it took was growing out of it. She could not be reasoned with. She could not be punished. Pain certainly didn’t work. Removal from the space made it more pleasant for us, but didn’t decrease frequency or duration.
As I stated before, I would not have been allowed to scream in public. My mother would simply cover my mouth and this was a common practice when I was a kid. Nobody, and I mean nobody would let a child go into a melt-down. It was dealt with at the first peep. Melt-down’s are what occur AFTER a prolonged confrontation with a parent. It’s how the confrontation was dealt with from the start that determines how it will end. If I was grocery shopping with her and started demanding stuff she would stop the process from word one and read me the riot act. It would go something like this. “Can we have this?” “No”. “Why not?” “Because I’m the parent and I make the decisions”. At that point the cart would come to a screeching halt. “If you behave you will get to choose (fill in the blank)”. “IF not, I will choose it.” “Coprende”. And I’d have to acknowledge her with a “yes”.
My mother had many techniques she would use and one of them was pre-emptive strikes. Long before I got on a plane she would explain to me what was expected. If it were a really long flight she would also have worn me down and probably given me something to make me sleepy on top of it. In short, she was a parent. She planned ahead.
After looking at the video I’m going out on a limb and suggest Mamma isn’t a nutritionist and probably fed her feral offspring a double helping of McFries before the flight. I also will suggest that whiney parents instill this behavior in their children (who can do no wrong). Just an observation based on past experience.
I have spanked my kids on occasion. It is most effective, IMO, when it used rarely. But you can’t make a child be quiet by spanking them; or by digging your fingernails in their arm. The most accurate posts from above are the ones that say this is a problem that began years before Slaughter family was on the flight. It’s an indication of the type of discipline that they utilize (or not) every day. I suspect this is the same type of family that let their kids run wild in restaurants, and make a big huge mess, and think that since its a public place, it’s other people’s problem if they don’t like it. ~sigh~ They didn’t stand a chance.
I just heard on cnn.com that the Slaughter family isn’t happy that their tickets were refunded. They want to be refunded for the ‘other’ flight they had to take too. The funny thing is; I haven’t personally talked to anyone who thinks Southwest did anything wrong (except for refunding the money part)!
