Small children while travelling.

[shikitohno]

If I'm not concerned about reputation and it's winter time, I could always wrap my keffiyah around my head and start muttering in broken Arabic too. Of course, that's more likely to get me kicked off the bus.

[sgreger1]

I know you can't avoid taking them along in all situations. Still, there's a distinction between a kid who's upset because their sick or something, and have their parents trying to calm them down, and the kids who act like little bastards because their parents sit by and do nothing. The former, while certainly annoying to others, I find understable. The latter, I find extremely annoying. Too many people just sit doing nothing while their children misbehave, simply because they know they can get away with it. If anyone dares call them out on it, mom will just respond with, "They're just being kids, asshole." and they know it.

Oh I agree. I hate seeing kids in the supermarket who throw themselves on the floor screaming cause they can't have something. My daughter has tried that once or twice but she doesn't do that anymore, I can NOT stand a kid like that. I want obedience almost on the level of what I would expect from a puppy (though that's hard to acheive). Come here, sit, stay, follow me, go over there etc etc. But you gotta really be stern with them and I think a lot of parents are afraid they will hurt their childrens feelings or somethig so they let them run wild.

[sgreger1]

just turn around and say look I am really stressed, I have to meet my parole officer and tell him I lost another job due to it getting out I am a registered sex offender. That will get them to move or get their kids under control real quick...

Ken

LOLOLOL, this is the best solution.

[truthwolf1]

shikitohno, I use to think just like you.
Screaming kids would drive me crazy and I was always the lucky one sitting right behind one on a airplane.

Having a hell spawned child myself now, I am on the other side of that seat. We call her the little monster and she is very persistent. Quiet time, manipulation, loud voice, stern grip and the other thing our ancestors did before it became illegal... all have proven absolutely useless.

It has definately calmed down now that she is 4 and reason is starting to take hold. No TV means really no TV. etc..

After this life experience I honestly do not even hear those kids on the planes anymore. Somehow my brain just shuts it out in some sanity survival mode.

[Slidingblues]

My kids learned early on that things we do or say have consequences. The consequences can be good or bad based on the choices that were made. As a result of setting clear expectations and being true to my word they are very well behaved.

[WickedKitchen]

I used to put mine in the luggage if they acted up.

In all seriousness it's the parents that are the at fault here. The kids will by and large behave the way they are taught to, or allowed to depending on how you look at it. What the hell was that? The mother couldn't get their child buckled in? WTF? An adult couldn't put a kid in a seat and keep it there? As a bystander I'd have to say something about that.

I've done 6-7 hour plane rides with my kids from infancy, which is strange 'cos Air Lingus put them in a cardboard box but they behaved nonetheless, to now they're 6 and 8. Sure, it was work and that there is the problem. The parents obviously either chose not to or were not able to but the work into it. I'm guessing they choose to allow it as the phone conversation seemed more important.

All that being said, and I mean every word of it, there is a different outlook on just about everything when you have a child and when you don't. It's a sort of primal thing IMO. I liken it to when members of a group interact in any way with members of another tribe, herd, culture, belief system, or what have you. It's an animal instinct sort of thing that can't fully be explained in words. Sometimes it does completely change your opinion on things, but something tells me that these parents wouldn't be complaining if it were someone else's kids anyhow...unless of course they were interrupting the phone call.

[Ainkor]

My wife called me the kid whisperer when ours were young. Of course the dog whisperer came out much later but in retrospect, she said that's what she would have called me. 3 kids, all either in their 20's or late teenagers and they are all very well behaved.

I always took them to the grocery store and a single hand on their shoulder was enough for them to understand that "another step and you're in deep shit" if they started to act up. I never beat them, rarely spanked them but they had a healthy fear of me, which is how it should be.

I still get a hug and a kiss each night from all three so I must have done something right