A screaming, hitting, disobedient three-year old girl was put off a Air Tran flight yesterday, along with her two parents.
The two adults–from Boston, naturally–said they simply needed more time to calm and cajole the three-year old into taking her seat and putting on her seat belt.
Read this little news item and tell me that the real problem is the airline, as the press account suggests.
Right. The problem is the parents. Their inability to control their child is treated as natural (”oh, what can we do?”). This is not unlike President Carter’s policy toward the Iranian hostage-takers and about as effective.
Somewhere in Hell there is a 737 packed with these psuedo-parents listening to other people’s children cry for all eternity.
These Boston-based parents think they were humiliated for being politely deplaned. Wrong again. They humiliated themselves for failing to keep their kid in line.
As far as I know, no one has asked these careless parents what their opinion of spanking is. But surely we can guess.
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13 Comments
1. Anastasia:We’ve flown with all three of our kids. Never had a problem other than dealing with air pressure changes, but we were prepared with binkies and gum and explaining that it would be over soon. Not a peep.
Then again, we had the three-strikes-you’re-out rule. You were warned. You were warned and a spank threatened. Spank.
Spanking decreased rather rapidly since they always knew Mom and Dad meant business, and our kids were always fun to be around.
Do the hard work of parenting if you want to enjoy your kids.
Jan 23, 2007 - 4:42 pm 2. Chip:I could take a three-year-old girl. Yeah, I’m that tough. I’d use some Asian martial arts restraint technique. Can’t give away the secret.
Jan 23, 2007 - 7:12 pm 3. A.M. Mora y Leon:When I read that story, I made a note to keep AirTran on the list of airlines I will fly on. Obviously, they care about good customer service for everyone. And they were awfully nice to give that undisciplined, unruly, self-centered family time to calm their daughter and properly prepare her for flight by escorting them off the plane to make those preparations that they had not bothered to do. They even refunded their tickets and bought them three more, making it a profitable flight for the ingrates who had no apology for subjecting 120 people to their little one’s tantrums for a quarter hour or more. Yes, I have made a mental note to fly AirTran, which may be unsuitable for self-centered, hold-up-the-flight Boston yuppie couples but sounds like a good deal for the rest of us. I am just sorry AirTran had to go through this in order to show the rest of us its essential fairness and commitment to the welfare of all its passengers, not just its selfish yuppie couples from Boston who want the whole world to stop for their untrained, unprepared obviously neglected and abused toddler’s tantrums. They need a visit from a social worker and the Child Protective Services as well as constant monitoring on their parenting skills from the state.
Jan 23, 2007 - 8:05 pm 4. breezaway:Sent this off to my email list, then stumbled on your take on the same incident.
(signed)Former airline crew member.
These airline passenger dustups are fairly rare. I directly encountered about a 1/2 dozen in 25 years.
Note that the AP is the original source (so you will spot what’s wrong with the AP headline. Hint: 3 things).
‘Only :15 delay’??? Lessee, that would be :15 x 112 passengers = 1680 = 28 hours total off the other passengers lives (and the parents wanted more). I thought the airline was being over-generous, probably due PR reasoning. Bet they’re relieved that the parents won’t ever fly them again. So are the Flight Attendants.
Let’s try this headline: “Parents Kicked off Airplane During Child’s Tantrum”. (1) “Girl” is superfluous. (2) The Parents were kicked off, the child also – being ‘understood’. (3) “During”, not “After” the tantrum.
Jan 23, 2007 - 8:26 pm 5. Anon. Grandmother:Don’t be too quick to judge — there may be more here than is obvious. I could be wrong, but this sounds to me like the typical “meltdown” of an autistic child, which is extremely difficult if not impossible to control. It may even be that, at only 3, she is undiagnosed.
I am the grandmother of a beautiful 4-year-old autistic who occasionally displays the same behavior and one never knows when it will strike.
Jan 24, 2007 - 3:39 am 6. stubby:Spanking a 3 year old in the middle of a tantrum will only fuel the tantrum. What they should have done was dose the darling up on Benadryl about an hour prior to boarding – following the prescribed dosage instructions, of course. Three year olds cannot be expected, on their own, to handle the discomfort and length of a plane ride, and sometimes you have to take them along, so – drugs. The people claiming that a 3 year old just needed a good spanking are idiots, but so are the folks who think 3 year olds should be allowed to throw unimpeded tantrums whenever they want. Drug her, schedule the flight at a time of day when she’ll already be tired, carry her on to the plane and physically place her in the seat, strap her in, and talk to her till she falls asleep. I’ve done it, it works.
Jan 24, 2007 - 12:20 pm 7. Morgan Farmer:As a frequent traveler the most dreaded vision is that of parents with screaming children and scads of baby stuff attempting to board the aircraft while dropping all of their belongings in the boarding area and then repeating it as they board. Air Tran was right in removing the child and the parents..wrong in giving them rewards afterwards.
I feel sorry for the crew members that made the decision….their employer has probably crucified them and given them time off….if not outright fired them.
Jan 24, 2007 - 2:18 pm 8. mississippi gal:how bout somebody setting this family up for a visit from ‘the nanny’ . this is a classic case of a mother and father wanting to blame an airline for their own parental mistakes.being late pulling out from the gate can cause other flights to be delayed also. it is a trickle down effect. not to mention sometimes fined by the airports. they should be fined by the faa the amount the airlines will be fined for taking off late and have to accept responsibility for their daughter’s actions. you know most airlines and ships pay ‘docking fees’ for each moment they are ‘in port’. it would be interesting to see how this mother and father reacted if they received a bill from the government instead of the airline for the delay and also the delayed time spent in the gate.
Jan 24, 2007 - 7:24 pm 9. Tom Dougherty:Air Tran girl very likely has SPD and possibly AS. Her parents need to get her evaluated and probably get her OT care to help with this problem.
This is not a discipline problem that parents can control. Dr. Manny and Nanny911 should be ashamed for not seeing this problem. It is way beyond ADHD!
You, Richard Miniter also should be ashamed for passing judgment on medical matters of which you have no clue. If this girl is given OT care early, she can possibly live a normal life. Can you get this message to her parents? Our prisons are full of people with this problem but the word is not out there, even child shrinks don’t know about it. Richard, do some good for children and this world and read “The Out of Sync Child” Thanks and please help these children.
Jan 25, 2007 - 9:35 am 10. Walter:You know 20 years ago we had only a few syndromes like attention deficit disorder, now it seems like we have thousands, and most can be attributed to spoiled, mis -parented, childhoods.
We assign Syndromes like Mr. Dougherty is suggesting to remove the responsibility of good parenting.
My many great wishes to Air Trans, they should be placed on a pedestal high in the air for all to see. They have done a great service to the customers on that plane, and have set a standard that all other airlines and common carriers should follow.
This was simply a spoiled brat with absolutely no parental control.
Jan 25, 2007 - 12:21 pm 11. breezaway:Whole lot of shooting from the hip here. And Granny was right about two things: she has an autistic g-child, and that there are probably more details to this incident than is in a short AP wire release.
The rest is her wild speculation. But most readers would understand that. To wit: this child may never have done this before, therefore surprised ‘unOJTed’ parents, or her ENT Dr. didn’t clear her to fly 4-5 weeks after surgery, or lots of other things to guess at.
Doesn’t seem to be crew/airline/other passenger’s fault though.
Jan 27, 2007 - 5:47 pm 12. Adele:Wow, what a bunch of judgmental jackals you all are. By the way, Benedryl doesn’t work on all kids, kids don’t have to have any kind of diagnosis to have bad days (imagine that! I’ve encountered adults on airplanes who have been nearly as bad as that kid and nothing was done about them…), and sometimes kids get sick. Who the heck knows what was going on between these parents and their kid? It could have been a healthy kid with no problems who is regularly disciplined at home just having a bad day. We weren’t there. We don’t have any idea, and definitely not from what little these articles say about the situation.
That said, if I were the parents I probably would have put her into the car seat regardless of the struggle and let her cry (which would have humiliated me, but whatever. I can’t schedule my entire traveling life around everyone ELSE’s convenience, however much I actually want to and will do that when possible). And math problems aside, 15 minutes to wait on an airplane is nothing…half the time I travel I get to wait half an hour or 45 minutes while the “toilet” is fixed! Please.
Learn to fly your own plane or charter a private jet if you want to avoid the “dregs” of society (IOW, parents with children and paraphernalia). Otherwise, we’ve paid for our tickets just like you have. I don’t blame the airlines for taking them off the plane–if the parents were unable to strap her in in a timely fashion that’s the airlines’ prerogative. I probably wouldn’t have reimbursed them or given them free tickets (letting them try another flight I don’t have issue with; they pay by having to wait for available space.)
However, all of the snide comments about how they should have spanked her or that they were bad parents or that she was merely a spoiled brat or the “how dare a small child cry and how dare the parents not duct tape the child’s mouth shut for our personal comfort” are just plain silly. Amazingly, even children who are regularly spanked act up. Some kids who are never spanked hardly act up at all.
I would NEVER spank my child in public. You same people sitting on your high horses judging a situation you weren’t even actually attending who say the parents don’t believe in spanking or that OBVIOUSLY this was just a spoiled brat who needs a firm hand…you are the same people who would turn a parent in for spanking. I trust no one these days. I do my utmost to think of others going into situations like this, and MOST important…I try to instill discipline and respect from my child at home so I don’t need to spank in public. And STILL I’ve had good flights and bad flights with my kid. The ones I thought would be a nightmare weren’t and the ones I thought would be easy…also weren’t.
No matter what…kids and animals are unpredictable. Hovering self-righteous vultures. Good grief. Maybe they ought to have adult-only flights and family-friendly flights so everyone knows what to expect (as if we don’t right now.) Bunch of pansy whiners. And I’ve had MORE than my share of childless flights with some munchkin kicking the back of my seat, but whatever. I flew from South Korea to Seattle with a Chinese couple and their tiny infant in the seats RIGHT NEXT TO ME (I sat next to the window the whole time with the bassinet above my knees, and the parents where on edge the whole time TERRIFIED that their baby would disturb me. She didn’t, even when she fussed. She was a kid and the parents did their best.)
Get over yourselves. The parents got what they deserved (too much), and life goes on. I, too, can’t believe this is news. Sheesh.
Jan 27, 2007 - 8:51 pm 13. Pajamas Media » It’s Not Always About the Autism:[...] on Michael Savage’s show — had ADD, depression, or oppositional defiant disorder. And where’s the uproar when a non-disabled child and her parents are ejected after the child refused to wear a seatbelt [...]
Jul 26, 2008 - 8:21 am