What should we do with unruly children on planes?

Question

Hi,

I am a flight attendant... the other day while working a short 2 hours trip, one of our passengers asked me, in a rather rude way, if there was nothing I could do to make the 3 or 4-years old kid behind him stop crying.
I told him that was more of his parents's jobs (the boy was travelling with both parents and they BOTH were listening to their iPods) .... finally I discretely told the mother that her boy was disturbing the other passengers and could she please try something to quiet him down. She looked at me with those evil eyes meaning "how do YOU dare telling me how I should raise my child!¨.... and she did nothing....

Now, what should I have done? (If anything) ... Normally I never say anything because I don't want to interfere but maybe I'm wrong.

to SexRex

No, our Standard Ops Procedures do not include that. If so I would've applied it. I'm based in Europe so maybe it's a US thing to have that in your manual? We do cover other types of unruly behaviour though, but an upset child is not really considered unruly anyway I guess.

to Coachotis

I was told by my cabin crew manager atht there was no policy about that .. that we should "apply common sense" .. that was it.... mind you I work for a pretty awfully disorganized airline.

Answer 1

i think u did nothing wrong and u handled it very well!! the mother was oblivious since she had her ipod and should have been paying attention to her child. ive been on a few flights where there have been upset children..if its a baby i let that slide becuz the baby doesnt know any better and the baby cant tell u whats wrong but if the kid is old enough to talk and let u know why he or she is crying then u (the parent) should find a way to make it stop..it shouldnt be the flight attendants job to quiet down children. i was on a flight from Boston to LA and a 6 year old was screaming and throwing the worst temper tantrum in the world and the parents just sat there with that "aww isnt it cute when they are this age" and finally the grandmother who had been sitting a few rows ahead turned around and got up and marched over to the kid and whispered something in his ear and he shut up immediatly and the half the plane started to clap!! the parents looked beyond mortified!! god bless that grandmother

Answer 2

Parents who do not control their children in flight are a danger to the safety and well being of all. You may have heard in the news a while back that an unruly child and his parents were asked to disembark before the pilot would take off, and that pilot has all my respect.
It is irresponsible even negligent to just let a child continue with a tantrum in a restricted environment like an aircraft. Frankly, I would have asked the co-pilot to speak with the parents and inform them if they were unable to control their child, the plane would make an emergency landing and they would be asked to disembark, how they continued their trip from there would be their issue. If more airlines did this, it would not take very long before such incidents became rare if they happened at all.

Answer 3

This is a difficult matter, and requires (and has probably received) attention from the corporate office. Take the matter up with your superiors, to learn what company policies obtain. A pox on the passengers in question, who ought to have more understanding of the difficulties facing the cabin crew -- and their fellow passengers. I had the unpleasant experience of sitting behind a baby who cried during the entire flight -- from San Francisco to London.

Answer 4

I'm surprised you're even asking this question! When you trained was there nothing in your SOPs that addressed this issue? It is your duty as a flight attendant to procure the proper atmosphere for all you passengers to enjoy their right to a peaceful and uneventful flight. You were in all your rights to have told this awful new-age 'parent' to stop her brat from bothering other passengers. You should have taken it up with your supervisor and made sure the little ****** along with the biatch of a mother conformed to flight rules and standards. Maybe nest time get the air-marshal in on the act and tell him that you overheard the mom and the brat planning an attack on the cockpit!

Answer 5

Throw them out of the plane! LOL - Just kidding - the parents are retarded and there certainly should be reprocussions for them regarding their children's behavior. I know first hand how difficult it is to travel with a child that is out of sorts on a plane, but putting on headphones to drown out the problem is not the way to handle it. My daughter's first airplane ride was pretty good, but there was a short time on the tarmac at Las Vegas where she had a little crying fit. Although it was very brief one of the male passengers threw a bigger fit than she did! This on made things worse because he was yelling and upsetting her more. It would be wonderful if there was a separate compartment for those traveling with kids. Something to think about huh?

Answer 6

You did nothing wrong. people need to control their kids. I try to travel first class as much as possible to avoid this. years ago the last 5 rows in coach were reserved for smokers. Today we should reserve the last 5 rows for people traveling with children under the age of 7. These seats are close to the bathroom and the galley on some planes.

Answer 7

Could you have moved the passenger to another seat? The disgust of the passenger should have been good enough, but unfortunately its ok for parents to have unruly children.

Answer 8

The airline have criminal accountability to different passengers and making advantageous that flight isn't not on time to any extent further. If this became into somebody else's infant, i'm advantageous that the mum and dad would not think of two times of the airline had executed. i think of the airline made a appropriate determination and that they even refunded the money and given 3 unfastened tickets for them to apply any time.

Answer 9

As a flight attendent I would have asked the parents to deal with their child or else they would be forbidden to ride with our airline again. I can imagine they would have to take the same airline flight back, I would ask the captain`s permission to ban them from coming back with our airline. I would inconvience them like they are inconviencing everyone else...Life sucks....

Answer 10

I just got off a Southwest flight where the flight attendant directly asked the troublesome children to please be quiet. She was direct but pleasant and told the kids they needed to be quiet. The parent seemed to be appreciative. My question is, what is your airline policy?