How is this child’s situation any different than @RickJay’s story about returning to the gate because he was really sick?
RickJay’s issue was resolved within minutes, whereas this child’s situation dragged on for an hour before the airplane went back to the gate. Had the crew removed the child and parents much sooner, the plane might have been able to beat the 12:30 curfew deadline for takeoff.
Also, sickness is viewed as involuntary, but someone’s behavior (or their parents’) is viewed as being much more controllable or a matter of choice.
So the issue is with the crew or the child? Why aren’t we spanking the crew, stuffing napkins in their mouths, or calling them brats? Holding the crew down or strapping them in?
There are 35M commercial flights a year and sometimes shit happens and it’s no one’s fault. There’s nothing to fix. Having to stay overnight is collateral damage whether it’s from a sick passenger, an issue with the plane, or bad weather.
Except we all know better here. A child too scared to fly isn’t any more intentional than getting sick.
We don’t know at all how voluntary this was. Perhaps the child had developmental or emotional disabilities.
Yeah, the phrasing “child refuses to be seated” quoted in the thread title is poisoning the well of analysis a little bit. “Refuses? Why, that spoiled brat simply decided the rules didn’t apply to them and expected their whims to be humored? That’s a paddlin’!!” 
A headline like “Flight Is Canceled after a Distressed Child Couldn’t Control Emotional Meltdown To Comply with Safety Procedures” might well be more accurate, but would provide less clickbaity incentive for recreational outrage.
I’m 6’4” and over 220 lbs (way over at this point). There were times when our daughter was tantruming as a toddler when the only way I could restrain her was to bodily hug her to me. The lesson I learned during those years was that an angry toddler is strong, irrational, and has no concept of personal safety.
I’ve seen a couple references to the child’s situation dragging on for an hour with the crew supposedly standing lamely by, not doing anything to deplane the child and accompanying parent(s). Where is that coming from? I had the impression that the bulk of the time was likely due to having to taxi back to a gate (were there any gates readily available, or did they have to wait for one to open up?) and removing the checked bags from the plane (how long did it take ground crew, who probably had other planes to load/unload, to become available for this unscheduled extra job?).
Also, just to note, a toddler—even an otherwise healthy and unspoiled child who is just having a shitty day, as many of us grown ass adults do when flying—might as well be legally insane. From a criminal standpoint, they not responsible for their actions (and with good reason).
As for the parent(s), I think those who have posited it can in fact be difficult to keep a toddler from wriggling out of a lap-belt at will while having to remain seatbelted yourself. You try to stop them from sliding down, they go up. You try to stop them from sliding up, they got down. You grab an arm and a leg, they flail enough to pull away from your sub-optimal grip (having to lean over from the side).
Like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
To my mind, the child might as well have had an epileptic seizure.
I’m curious what some people would consider to be a child, or his parents, truly going too far.
Here in this thread, we’ve already seen that causing 100 fellow passengers to have their flight cancelled is excusable. A parent failing to get their toddler buckled and strapped in, for a long time, is excusable. Multiple defenses have taken the form of, “the kid may be autistic, on the spectrum, having a panic attack; getting a kid restrained is physically difficult.”
At what point would one consider behavior by a child, or his/her parents, to not be excusable?
This isn’t a perfect parallel, but at my church, there used to be a highly destructive kid (let’s call him Aaron.) Aaron was around age 6-7. He would knock over things, kick over things, destroy things for fun - to the point where I was afraid anytime he was near a baby stroller, because he seemed like someone who would kick over a stroller for amusement’s sake. Telling him “no” had the exact opposite effect, it made him all the more determined to destroy things (as church pianist, one time he came up to my piano, and I said “no,” because I knew he was going to try to shove my sheet music to the floor, and he looked at me straight in the eyes and did so anyway, knowingly). Notably, Aaron’s parents would watch all this happening in front of them and do nothing. In fact, when other kids were having birthday parties, Aaron’s father would ask, “can you allow Aaron to be the one to blow out the candles, not the birthday kid? It’s what Aaron wants.” Now, was Aaron on a spectrum or having a disorder? Maybe. Was he physically strong and hard to restrain? Possibly. Was he the same as the kid on the Porter Airlines airplane? Probably not. But as a parent, at a certain point, your kid’s effect on those around you is your responsibility. Saying “he has issues, and it’s hard to restrain him” just doesn’t cut it.
You really think a title like that would be an improvement? It uses more words to give less information and assumes facts not in evidence about the child’s emotional state. “Refuses to be seated” is a succinct summary of what we know without introducing assumptions about things we don’t know.
We shouldn’t make too many assumptions without more information, but I’ve seen some truly bad parenting. Just the other day in the supermarket a lady with two young kids was shopping while the kids ran around all over the grocery store, shrieking their heads off to the point it made my ears ring, and playing with the merchandise. She was completely unconcerned.
Fortunately an FAA approved product already exists, as has been linked above more than once.
I think the issue is that the child wasn’t being bratty, they had an emotional breakdown. “Refuses” gives the impression of a conscious decision.
If an adult had such a breakdown, it wouldn’t last as long because there wouldn’t be a super adult spending half an hour trying to force the terrified passenger to fly. They would just apologize and ask to get off the plane.
Because it’s a child, people expect them to be little automatons fully under the control of their parents and why can’t the parents just make the kid sit down and shut up.
One wonders why such a child would be invited at all. But yes, of course that is beyond unreasonable.
My daughter was a delightful little kid–friendly, kind, creative, well-behaved. And on her first flight, she bit her mom. Flying is a bizarre experience that’s unlike anything a kid has experienced, and how they respond to it is fundamentally unpredictable.
I see you people who say you judge parents and kids. Cool. I judge people who judge parents and kids.
These parents had a hellacious experience. Having their very very shitty day become fodder for tabloids is just prolonging that experience.
I’m confused why they didn’t just beat the child to death and leave its corpse strapped in the chair as a warning to other children.
Finally, a sensible take on the situation.
Perhaps a better title would be:
Airline Cancels Flight After Failing to Resolve a Predictable Problem in a Timely Fashion
A bit of a Dog Bites Man headline, I grant you, but keeps it in active voice and places the emphasis/agency where it belongs. On the airline, which really ought to be able to predict this sort of thing, not some toddler who doesn’t (and frankly can’t fully be expected to) know how their actions might have disproportionate effects on others. Or the toddler’s parent(s) who, also predictably, are at a disadvantage when trying to physically restrain their child essentially with one hand tied behind their back due to the constraints of air travel.
Honestly, I don’t think it’s too ridiculous to expect airlines to have harness-type restraints for children, regardless of whether a child is proving unruly, for the same reasons car seats are now mandatory for children in many jurisdictions: typical seats and their restraints are not designed for small children and are arguably inherently unsafe for them.
But of course how are the airlines to know how many harnesses to have for a given flight? It’s not like people make reservations in advance and may be (are?) required to provide their birthdates as part of the booking process.
Oh, wait…
Bravo…
Most parents do.
Can I judge people who judge people who judge parents and kids?
When it’s predictable and they do it anyway. If this family flys again without making changes to address whatever the issue was, then i think you can blame the parents.
But shit happens, and what shit will happen can be hard to predict. I didn’t take any special precautions when i flew with kids, other than packing snacks and toys. And it went fine. As it does for most parents most of the time.
Sorry to nitpick my own post, but I’d like to amend my proposed alternate title to:
Airline Fails to Timely Resolve Predicable Problem, Cancels Flight