traveltess - :)) Too funny.

Years ago, certainly prior to 9/11, a friend of mine who has as little fondness for misbehaving children as I have shared a favorite technique of his for dealing with a 'situation'. One simply turns to the parent and says quietly, "Excuse me, but my Parole Officer told me I should stay as far away from children as possible."

The couple of times he tried it, the parent took immediate steps to ensure that some distance was obtained. Of course, try that now on an airplane, and your next stop would be Guantanamo. But – at least for now, fantasy is harmless.

Fritzrl

lolfn--the child WAS in a carseat, so that explains one aspect--though the parents did not explain that to me and such an explanation might have me me slightly (very slightly) less annoyed.

However, the law does not require that the kid stay in it's seat the entire time, so mom or dad could have given the kid a stroll up or down the aisle or moved him to their lap briefly . . . just done something to change the behavior which their few comments to the child did not accomplish.

I still think taking off the shoes would have helped tremendously. I'll suggest that to the parent if this occurs again.

Tell the child directly in a stern - not friendly but not mean voice- to please stop kicking your seat. A lot of children listen better to a complete stranger then they do their parents. Also talking directly too them lets them know that you are holding them responsible not their parent.

Does this approach irritate the parent? - usually but who cares the parent isn't the one kicking your seat!

I have three toddlers and we travel a great deal so this is a big issue for us. With small kids like toddlers and preschoolers, there is really little one can do about the kicking. As a previous poster noted, it really isn't even kicking. Their little legs are so short that sitting in the seat, particularly if they are in a car seat, their feet brush up agains the back of the seat in front of them. They have no joint between their knee and ankle which would allow them to bend their feet down and not kick. They don't mean to, it is just there is nothing else that can be done.

Now, we do take off their shoes and encourage them to cross their legs and do other things but that is only of limited assistance. I always talk to the people in front of each of my guys before take off and mention the kicking thing and explain the problem and kind of apologize in advance and ask them to let me know if it particularly bad and that seems to help. I think more than anything else, the fact that I acknowledge a potential issue up front means a lot.

We get many comments after landing about how well behaved our guys are so we must be doing something correct.

Good luck with all the rest of you with your kicking issues.

Taitai

that is a tough one...i had to deal with that on a flight coming from the east to the west coast...

this kid kept kicking the friggin seat

it is a delicate area because if you ask the child to stop, the parent could flip out and get all upset at their lack of parental skills, or you could be blamed for not being patient

personally, i tried to ignore it as much as possible...the parent obviously knows it is going on if they are in the same aisle, but chooses to not correct them..... :(

I believe the issue is with the kids who are violently kicking the seats, not all kids who accidentally hit them. More like the kid who keeps slamming the food tray up and down or is constantly jumping up and down on the seat, or is throwing a tantrum, or is completely bored and his/her parents are too busy sleeping or chitchatting.

There have been many threads on this subject.

The only time I got really upset was on a flight home from PDX. The little guy behind me kicked,kicked and kicked. He was about 4 years old if memory serves me correctly. I finally turned around and very nicely asked him if he could stop kicking the seat. He glared, his mother (guess she was the mother) looked horrified. She than started talking to him about the "horrible woman in front of him" or maybe it was the "crabby woman in front of him", can't remember,lol. Anyway it was a SW flight. I finally got up and talked to the FA and thank goodness there was an empty seat I could move to.

No surprise that this little fellow didn't know how to act, obviously his mother was going to be the kind to even give his teacher holy h*ll if they dared suggest he was not conducting himself properly. I feel sorry for children whose parent's give them the impression "it is all about them". And God bless the parents who try their best, I salute you! Being a mother and grandmother I know how difficult it is at times.

Oh, what a busy day I had!

I mentioned to Thingorjus today about the incident involving his dropping of a bag on a child's head.

This was his response:

"That little trailer trash in Coach should be damn glad I dropped my Louis Vuitton on his head because it will be the only time in his life when Louis Vuitton will touch his body."

I honestly don't know if he was kidding or not.

Christine