"Flight Is Canceled After a Child Refuses to Be Seated"

[Beckdawrek]

I don’t know that.

Like most bystanders I would be making a judgement call. We have no other info to go on.

But really troublesome toddlers don’t bloom in one day. Families know their kids idiosyncrasies. My son and DIL would never have taken the youngest daughter any where near a plane. They knew how she would react. Been there, done that.

It’s on the parents raise cooperative kids or get help for them if you cannot.

I hear a kid screaming in Walmart, I automatically think “kid needs a nap”. I don’t know this. I’m judging. I don’t like to judge folks and their kids, but we do. Every one does. Notice the number of replies in this thread.

[kenobi_65]

@Beckdawrek

But really troublesome toddlers don’t bloom in one day.

And even the sweetest-natured, best-behaved toddlers can have a bad day, especially in an unfamiliar environment, and possibly long past their usual bedtime.

[Chefguy]

@Roderick_Femm

But then, I was terrified of my father and his violence (which really helped us get along as adults \s) so in my case stuff like that was pre-emptively prevented.

I wasn’t violent, but my kids knew from an early age that they were expected to behave themselves when out in public and at other people’s homes. My oldest did throw a tantrum in a supermarket once. Threw himself on the floor and squalled like a banshee. He wouldn’t get up, so I grabbed him by one ankle and dragged him down the aisle toward the door. Quieted down quickly, he did, and I never had a problem after that. You may call that abuse; I called it “efficient”.

[puzzlegal]

@Chefguy

My oldest did throw a tantrum in a supermarket once. Threw himself on the floor and squalled like a banshee. He wouldn’t get up, so I grabbed him by one ankle and dragged him down the aisle toward the door. Quieted down quickly, he did, and I never had a problem after that. You may call that abuse; I called it “efficient”.

My daughter sometimes lost it and ended up squalling like a banshee. We always took her outside and waited for her to quiet down. But we definitely had problems multiple times.

[raspberry_hunter]

I don’t think it would ever have occurred to me that my toddler might be terrified on a plane. (I think flying is so cool!) It didn’t happen in either of my kids’ cases (they were also both fascinated by planes) but if it had, I would have been entirely blindsided.

[Spice_Weasel]

@puzzlegal

The problem seems to be that the parents didn’t realize they would need to tie up their kid. (And maybe if they’d known the flight would terrify their child, they would have made different choices altogether. Restraining a terrified toddler in a harness can’t be a terrific solution, either.)

We wouldn’t travel with my son until he was verbal and could understand the whole concept (this is not always possible. For all we know this family was flying to a funeral.) But we really played it up as this wonderful and cool thing and read him books about flying and tried to prepare him as much as possible about what to expect. He was pretty excited by the time we actually flew. It was interesting until he was in the sky and you couldn’t see anything but clouds and then he lost interest. But he talked about it for long after.

It helps him especially to describe exactly what to expect in a new situation. When we do that, smooth sailing. When we neglect to do that, things can get challenging.

And still I am averse to traveling with him. Chicago was nice (a five hour drive) but after four days I was completely exhausted and we came home. My FIL wants us to do an international trip. Are you kidding me? I’m not putting anyone through that.

[puzzlegal]

My kids had been on a lot of buses, taxis, and trains before we ever tried flying. (They were born in Manhattan.) I don’t think flying was all that different for them from any other mass transit, honestly.

[madmonk28]

@Chefguy

None of my kids would ever have dared to try shit like that. Who the fuck is in charge in that family?

We wouldn’t have dared try that either. In an unrelated note: my father died alone in a nursing home.

[chela]

Another kid who wouldnt take a seat, but he was a lap baby and this event does sound ridiculous. Kicked off, put on another plane that was delayed long enough for the family to board. Make it make sense.

The Ridiculous Reason My Family Was Kicked Off a US Airways Flight – Kveller

[Eyebrows_0f_Doom]

In that incident, it sounds more like the flight attendant was having a power trip.

[wolfpup]

@kenobi_65

@puzzlegal

Maybe @LSLGuy can comment for US standards, but i think they check to make sure everyone is buckled as the plane rumbles off to line up for takeoff.

I’d also be curious if the Canadian standards are any different from the U.S., as the flight in question was on a Canadian airline traveling between Canadian airports. (I doubt it’d be substantially different, but I don’t know.)

As someone who has flown many, many times on Canadian domestic flights, I can assure you that everyone is checked for seat belts and proper baggage placement before takeoff. Many decades ago the standards were looser, as they probably were in the US, too, at the time.

[puzzlegal]

Yes, but the poster was talking about being strapped in before the plane left the gate. I don’t think they do that.

(I usually put on my seatbelt as soon as I’ve stowed my luggage and taken my seat, though, so I’m not certain.)

[muldoonthief]

I don’t know when the attendants check, but they definitely turn on the fasten seatbelt sign and ask you to fasten your seatbelts before they pull away from the gate.

[Beckdawrek]

My father was a tough Marine DI..you dang right it was expected we comport ourselves in a correct manner.

We never questioned his authority.

My baby brother might’ve been an issue a time or two. It was always short in duration.

Daddy had this look, you did not ignore it.

OTOH, I’m not sure how they flew with all of us.

[madmonk28]

Yeah, my dad was a marine, too. Like I said, he died alone.

[needscoffee]

@ThelmaLou

Googling the story turns up multiple accounts but oddly they are all almost word-for-word repetitions of the original story AND each other. IOW no new information, just repeating the original story over and over. Strange. Hasn’t any news outlet interviewed the other passengers?

Where do you think they’re going to find these passengers? Waiting around the airport for the next flight? The airline is going to just hand over all their info? In the meantime, they report what little information is available.

[Spice_Weasel]

I was also raised in a very strict household and I don’t talk to my parents either.

I think you can be strict and not abusive, but there’s often a lot of overlap.

Also, it doesn’t work. Research consistently shows that authoritarian parenting and overly permissive parenting both result in negative outcomes for their children. The goal is the happy middle, authoritative parenting. Clear limits, reasonable consequences, calm demeanor.

“Gentle parenting” often gets twisted into a call for permissive parenting. I’m not into the trend, but I’ve read enough to know the proponents are usually talking about having compassion for your child in the moment while also setting firm limits. It’s not like these are mutually exclusive concepts. For a young child having a meltdown, this would entail understanding that young children in this state are unable to effectively reason or learn lessons in the height of their distress because they are so physiologically aroused. The goal is to get the kid regulated first. Then you can give them the talking to and talk about consequences. A lot of people see the meltdown and the compassion (which they view as permissive) but they don’t see the consequences, which come later.

When my son was suspended I didn’t talk to him about it until we got home and we were eating dinner. The following day he experienced the very natural consequence of a very boring day with me while I worked from home. I made no attempt to entertain him and every time he said he was bored I explained to him that his boredom was the desirable point of this exercise because he had inconvenienced everyone and I now had to work while he sat twiddling his thumbs. Since he was getting 10 days grounded from screens he could not retreat to electronic entertainment.

I don’t know if it will work because the problem isn’t really disciplinary, but I wasn’t about to reward him for that kind of behavior. I can tell you for sure that it has a better chance of working than getting the shit slapped out of him and having insults screamed at him for an hour until he’s on his knees begging for forgiveness, which is how I was raised. That resulted in my leaving home at 17.

My mother’s third husband was insanely abusive to his son. It wasn’t unusual for us to be sitting at the dinner table and we’d all be talking happily and out of fucking nowhere her husband would reach over and hit his son in the head because he was talking with his mouth full. Then he would beat him with a belt until his skin was all welted.

I think of that kid every time I’m frustrated with my son. I know he’s probably out there beating his own kid (it’s not a guarantee, but given the culture we were raised in that reinforced that mentality, it’s pretty likely.) My heart aches for him.

When I think about someone like my own parents parenting my own son, I get nauseated. I can get caught in these unpleasant daydreams about it and feel sick to my stomach.

A lot of kids back in the day were raised by people like my mother’s third husband. They are parents now. While some are overly permissive, I can’t fault them for wanting to try a different way.

[thorny_locust]

My mother told me this; I don’t remember it.

When I was about a year old, my parents took me on a trip involving a train ride. I must have been used to riding in cars by then; the car ride to the train station was no problem. But when they got me on the train, I started to scream. Not ordinary baby crying; full fledged screaming.

I would not be quieted, I would not be consoled. I just kept on screaming. Eventually, my mother got off the train and took me back home. (I don’t know whether she got on a train going the other way, or took a cab back to our car.) And — she said that for months afterward I was a timid clingy child.

Thinking about it many years later, and considering some much less drastic experiences since, I thought maybe it was something about the particular noise the train was making. But I wonder whether this kid on the plane was having some similar experience.

This would have been about 1952; seat belts weren’t an issue.

[doreen]

@Velocity

Physically hold them in place for taxiing and takeoff.

There was no way I could have held my son in his seat while I was buckled into my own seat. My arms are too short to be able to get/keep both hands on him. Which is one of the reasons I never flew when my kids were young.

[billy-jack]

@Snarky_Kong

I don’t really follow you. 1.5 hours to spend on: attempting to get the child to sit, deciding to give up, travel back to the gate, get the luggage off the plane, and top of fuel absolutely feels like it would be an issue to me.

Why would they bother taking the family’s luggage off? They can send it back on the next flight from the destination.