Kids are NOT accustomed to Flight travel and being confined in such a manner. I totally get it from "THAT" perspective. As a parent that is a nightmare to appease at times.
As for the airlines, indeed they have a right to approach the family and give them a brief amount of time to settle the children or offer another flight out. There may have been reasons for the childs discomfort other then a simple tantrum.
My son who YEARS ago had fear of flying....the doctors had to render a prescript to aide when it was necesary to travel cross country. To this day He cares not to fly....Be they adult or children it best to broach it PRIOR to that moment and work from there. I am in the minority in parenting 101 when it comes to children...I neither "handle" them in a harmful way or Tie them down to get them to abide. Somehow the tone, and way of enforcing proper manners can allow them assurance that as a parent they are their to protect and support .
disagree on one point
Kids are used to being confined and strapped in these days.
The mother is a peditrican & I doubt that she doesn't use car seats.
and
they were probably flying back home from a vacation
God knows, it could be the same captain that flew them there for vacation,
and he wasn't going to deal with it a second time.
Agree whole heartedly with the proper tone on dealing with misbehaving children !
& she's probably wondering why she can deal with other folks kids everyday, but her own always misbehaves.
To a certain extent children are used to car seats,What fails to be recognized is that on a plane there are far more distractions unlike a smaller area as ones own car with people they know. So factor in- strangers, noises they are not used to and the commotion and you are bound to have a child who becomes anxious. So basically there are external factors that can contribute to a childs' "tantrum" style behavior. As to the mothers "profession", She is still a Mom and no matter what its different to calm ones own then a strangers kid.
We do not know for a fact that this child "always" misbehaves, we only know that during this particular incident they were asked to be removed due to the delay it was having on their flight schedule.
My son at that age was very much an introvert and didnt care for strangers or certain "static" outside noises...He would be freighten'd by unfamiliar noises...Cars honking, fire engines...He was sensitive to sounds and external commotion. He would eventually outgrow this but during this "stage" He would appear to others as throwing a tantrum...It was his
only way to communicate...Luckily the doctor we had understood and created a regime that de-sensitized him to the environment....SO unfamiliar sounds/lights/smells can be troubling to a child. They don't have the "reasoning" to correlate a flight engine sound with "we are taking off into the sky and I must be still".
Because we live in an Adult world where children are "programmed" to conform , we forget that this is ALL new to them ...even if they flew before they are not cognizant the next time that certain ways are to be abided by.
I am not siding with a parent nor am I disagreeing with the airlines in how it was handled. Its simply important to differentiate and understand the environment in which this matter happened.
