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There’s been a bit of news around kids being on planes lately; namely young children / babies.
For starters there was this lady who had a meltdown at being seated next to a Mother and her baby:
Then there was this flight from Germany to New York where a 3 year old went on a “demonic rampage” and disrupted everyone:
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Can I be honest with you? I couldn’t think of ANYTHING worse than travelling, as a Mother, on a plane with my own child. Especially a younger child who has trouble understanding they’re in a confined space for a long period time.
When my daughter was 18 months old, and I was 20 weeks pregnant, we were flown (by my parents) to Ireland so we could attend my brother’s wedding.
Our daughter was extremely “well behaved”, but us as parents had a hell of a time ensuring she was fine on the flights.
I know not all parents will do this, but I would expect the majority also want their children to be happy and quiet; and not interrupting others.
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When I read a news article, or watch a video (like the one above about the “demonic child“), it concerns me at the type of information that is going out there in the world, and the kind of attitude that people have.
So I thought I’d break it down into comments I saw:
“Why wasn’t the Mum trying to calm the child down?”
Well you couldn’t see her trying, so just because you don’t see it in a video doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. How do you know she didn’t talk to the flight attendant about what was happening.
“Other people should NOT be expected to help her – it’s her job as a Mother to keep her kids in check”
Yes wouldn’t it be amazing if our children listened to us ALL of the time. Reality is, they don’t. Sometimes, even though I personally would feel embarrassed and horrified, we need help. Have you seen this photo of the flight attendant helping a mother and her child out?
“They should have been thrown off the flight”
No flight is perfect, and this mother and her child still need to get from one destination to another. It’s either on this flight, or another.
“She shouldn’t be a Mother if she can’t control her kid”
No one knows the reasons as to why the child was acting out – we do not know their situation. The video shown was just a snippet of information. It didn’t show whether or not she tried to calm her child down, and it certainly didn’t show if perhaps he had a medical condition.
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Judging a situation based on one moment, or one video, is probably not the best thing to do. Instead how about offering a bit of sympathy for everyone involved.
Heck, how about that person putting the camera away and offering to help out, or at least try to understand the situation. Did anyone bother to ask the flight attendants as to why they were allowing a child to run rampant like that?
It’s actually in every person’s best interests to try to understand that everyone on the plane is in the EXACT same boat. The flight attendants, the passengers, heck even the mother – they’re all stuck in the same space.
If everyone just spared a thought for each other, and offered help, or at least some kind of understanding that NO ONE wants to be there; the flight might be a bit easier.
Before we judge a situation that we read about online, or see in a video, we also need to realise there is MORE to what we see than meets the eye.
We do not know what is going on with the Mother and the child, it might not be a simple “the child is breaking the rules and the mother has no control”.
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Whatever happened, my thoughts are with everyone. I always try and put myself in that situation and I’d like to think that I would help out. Not only that, if I was the mother with a child having a breakdown, or upset, I would be mortified and doing all I can.
I would also hope no one took out a camera and recorded it. That would absolutely devastate me.
PS after writing this I discovered the boy in question did have a disability which affected his behaviour.