Handling kids who kick airline seats
Flight attendants don’t generally dread flights that are full. They dread flights which are packed with kids and those who aren’t used to traveling with kids around them.
Frequent flyers know that turbulence is a common occurrence on a plane. It’s when the aircraft hits a pocket of air where passengers experience different levels of bumpiness ranging from moderate to severe to extreme. Such is the force of nature that getting past this sudden and sometimes violent shift in airflow is all in the hands of the plane’s pilot. There’s nothing the rest of the crew or passengers can do except cling on to one’s seat and hope it doesn’t last long.
There is however several types of turbulence that can occur inside the aircraft. Disruptive kids and their disturbing actions are one. Despite all the meticulous prep prior to departure, it will not prevent some kid or another from carrying out those non-audible annoyances such as kicking the seat in front of them, climbing over and under the seats, and disobeying the seatbelt sign. While the last two mentioned disruptions are safety-related and warrant a flight attendant getting involved, the first type is not always easy to resolve. Sure in most cases parents do the best they can, and in others, well maybe not enough.
What do you do when the action of a child seated near or behind you disturbs your comfort? Some advise that its best to try and handle the situation before getting others involved. Very often a bit of patience goes a long way. If not, approaching the child or parent/s kindly, is usually the best approach. Like nicely saying: “Hey, little fella, is this your first plane ride? Yeah, I get nervous too. You know what helps me? Just closing my eyes and trying to relax. But when you kick my seat, that’s really hard to do” Usually, their parents get embarrassed and the kid stops right there and then.
But should it appear that neither the child nor the parent/s are helping end the annoyance, then it’s time to ask a flight attendant to intervene. But even for flight attendants, the situation is not always simple to resolve – particularly when parents show a degree of indifference and at 30,000 feet, there’s not a lot that a flight attendant can do either. Despite being trained to assist in emergency situations, crew members aren’t really taught how to handle a misbehaving brat. They have to be reliant on their own individual skills of persuasion to de-escalate such situations.
One can relate to the passenger who took matters into his own hand after following all the necessary steps to get a kid who was continuously kicking his seat. It unfolded like this:-
When he told the kid, “Please don’t kick my seat, thank you” He was rewarded with an even harder kick. Turning to the mother, he then said “Could you please tell your child to stop that?” she replied “He won’t listen to anyone and as you know, boys will be boys”. He then informed the flight attendant of the situation. When she politely asked the kid to stop kicking the seat, the mother replied, “its okay to yell at him, you can go ahead and yell at him or be sterner”. Mindful that doing just that would end up instantly on YouTube or be taken out of context to make her the villain, the flight attendant shrugged her shoulders and walked away – thus putting the onus on the mother to stop the kid’s behaviour.
The kid kicks the seat again. That’s when the man gets up and walks to the person sitting behind the spiteful child. He asks the person, “Would you mind letting me sit in your seat for 15 seconds? I need to resolve something.” The male passenger grins and gets up immediately saying “Sure thing.” The man then began to kick the shit out of nasty teenager’s seat, resulting in the brat starting to cry “Mommy, mommy…” A shocked mummy was then told by the man, “Your boy’s behaviour has brought out the kid in me and as you know boys will be boys”. The rest of the passengers (the ones who had witnessed the whole episode) began to clap.
End of story; The boy learned his lesson as did the mother and there was no more kicking during the rest of the flight.
Ilzaf Keefahs is a freelance writer who enjoys focusing on hospitality related matters that he is passionate about, and likes to share his views with hoteliers and customers alike. He delves into the heart of hospitality to figure out both customer service and consumer trends that impact the industry
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