No apologies needed

[Non Aligned States]

SOme people still like surprises you know.

Does that apply to your wife's "Surprise taze attack!" surprises as well?

[Lunatic Goofballs]

SOme people still like surprises you know.

Does that apply to your wife's "Surprise taze attack!" surprises as well?

Sometimes.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

you could say, "if you don't shut up i'll sit on you little scamps" in a very loud voice.

[Grave_n_idle]

The children and parents I tend to be annoyed with are those who do not seem to care about the other people.

That is your observation. Just making sure you know it's subjective.

A child crying because they are afraid, with a parent doing everything they can to soothe them is a very different situation to the child throwing a tantrum and screaming at the top of their lungs while the parents plug in their earphones and ignore the screaming child, but get upset at me when I politely ask them to quiet their child.

One of the most effective ways to curb a very bad attention-seeking behaviour, is to make a point of not rewarding it.

So - you make your point of explaining to the child that his or her bad attention-seeking behaviour will not gain attention - and then you remove the attention.

What the airline did - was reward the bad-attention-seeking behaviour, by granting it attention, and making the child's bad behaviour MORE powerful than the parent's capacity to ignore it.

The airline just made the behaviour worse. They undermined the parent, and reinforced the idea that bad behaviour gets results.

In restaurants, movie theatres and the like, there is no excuse. If the child is being unruly, remove them and return at another time.

So, again - the bad behaviour wins?

Excellent observations. You would make a good and patient parent I imagine if you arent already.

I have three, and I try.

There's a saying about how 'it takes a village' to raise a child - and it's kind of true. It doesn't mean youa ctually need a hundred parents, or that everyone has to be a positive influence, but it DOES mean that we're all interconnected, and our children pick up pointers from our communities.

People make a big deal about the 'responsibility' of parents. I get that a lot around here, in rural Georgia... how parenting is all about 'personal responsibility'... and then you see people doing exactly the stuff I was talking about, undercutting the parent.

How can it be a parent's responsibility if you won't let the parent be responsible?

[Grave_n_idle]

What my mother did with me did not reward my behaviour. It simply prevented me from inflicting my inappropriate behaviour on other people who didn't need to be subjected to it. I didn't get attention in the car, my mother read a book and let me scream. But it was in the car, where noone else had to put up with it.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that taking the kid outside is a bad policy. But you were rewarded, by having the event catered to you. If you pitched a big enough fit, your parents got so embarassed, that at least one of them had to quit whatever it was they were doing, to make a new arrangement with you, at YOUR insistence.

Your parent rewarded you for being a brat - you just haven't ever looked at it in terms of what the effect was for the behaviour, and what it meant.

[Grave_n_idle]

I suppose for kids of that personality, smacking or threats would be the only viable alternative.

And can you imagine if the mom had spanked the kid?

We wouldn't just be looking at an article about how she missed her flight, but how they took her kid away, too.

Also, when did this turn into a discussion on parenting?

It kind of always was - the airline made a parenting decision.

[Grave_n_idle]

Of course I told the child, I'm not getting into a debate with a kid over whether it feels like stopping kicking the back of my chair. I didn't see the point of talking to the parents as they were sat right there and had decided not to stop the child themselves.

Why are you not going to get into a debate with a kid over whether it feels like stopping kicking the back of your chair?

Isn't the end result of stopping kicking the important thing? Wouldn't it be worth debate, if it stopped it?

No - you want to ENFORCE your will, by fiat.

It's examples just like yours, that reinforce the exact same behaviour in children - the only difference is, you're less likely to get a spanking for it.

[Hallistar]

Frankly i'm f'ing sick of #1.(little screaming annoying brats who throw food and kick your seat and vomit on you) and 2.(extremely fat and obnoxious adults) , #2.5.(obnoxious people), and 3.(people with allergies to food that completely ruins the menu for everyone else). Imo, sedation for situation #1, reserve a section for those in situation #2 and #2.5, and just make #3 deal with it or eat their lunch.

[ChengISao]

[quote=...and 3.(people with allergies to food that completely ruins the menu for everyone else). ...and just make #3 deal with it or eat their lunch.[/quote]

Uh, O.K. Just so long as you administer the epinephrine just prior to my dying.

[NERVUN]

On the contrary, there might be a number of reasons why removing the child is not an acceptable solution ranging from other children that need parental supervision, to no transportation, to social situations that preclude being unable to leave, etc.

The point of the matter is that a two-year-old child is still in the process of learning what is socially acceptable or not. Parents cannot wall themselves off from the world until the child is old enough to know the rules (And indeed, this is how we learn them. Unless you are seriously trying to tell me that you were reading at age two, I suspect that if I talked to your parents, they would have a number of stories about your earliest years and your behavior then). So in other words, you're going to have to put up with children. Think on the idea that someone once had to put up with YOU.

I was reading at the age of eighteen months. And I was an extremely (apparently, almost creepily) quiet baby. Do you have a non-fallacious argument?

Unless you are attempting to state that your experience is the standard for every child, or that you were ALWAYS well behaved, I do not see where you might be claiming a point.

I was not. You, however, were:

"a two-year-old child is still in the process of learning what is socially acceptable or not"
"Unless you are seriously trying to tell me that you were reading at age two"
"Think on the idea that someone once had to put up with YOU"
etc.

I was just pointing out that your generalizations did not hold true for everyone, and cited a counterexample (in this case, me).

I was addressing that to Saint Jade directly, but if I can expand, so what? You were reading at 18 mos, but before that? Can you tell me that you never misbehaved or were cranky as a child? I find that extremely hard to believe.

If you were cranky as all children are at various times, then yes, someone did probably have to put up with you.

[Bikonria]

If I ran the airline company, I would have forms available on request that fliers could use to complain about disruptive passengers. (you could just identify with seat number) If enough reports come in the person in that seat (or their lazy parents) gets fined for $20-50 dollars. Flight is a service, and if people degrade the experience of said service, they should pay a higher price.

Of course people would say "that's discriminatory towards people with families." My policy is "tough luck, keep your kid under control.

[Grave_n_idle]

If I ran the airline company, I would have forms available on request that fliers could use to complain about disruptive passengers. (you could just identify with seat number) If enough reports come in the person in that seat (or their lazy parents) gets fined for $20-50 dollars. Flight is a service, and if people degrade the experience of said service, they should pay a higher price.

Of course people would say "that's discriminatory towards people with families." My policy is "tough luck, keep your kid under control.

I like this idea. Obviously, everyone get's these forms - like, one per seat, yes?

So - you could get all the families together, work out who was the instigator of the complaining-about-kids faction, and bankrupt them. Win-win!

[Ceannairceach]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3TB_BJLrn4

That solves all problems.

[Derscon]

This woman should have slapped her kid upside that head. That way, instead of being kicked off the plane, she'd be under arrest for child abuse.

What the fuck do you want her to do?

Close her fanny till she can control what pops out of it

What just happened? Did he lose the freaking game?!

I dont play the game

Yes, you do. The rules of The Game say so.

1. You are always playing The Game.
2. Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
3. Loss must be announced.

Also, we all just lost.

I wonder if this counts as meme spam? I'd hate to have to ban myself <.<

That would certainly set a rather curious precedent, but you're not allowed to rule on cases involving you.

[Azzers]

This woman should have slapped her kid upside that head. That way, instead of being kicked off the plane, she'd be under arrest for child abuse.

What the fuck do you want her to do?

Close her fanny till she can control what pops out of it

What just happened? Did he lose the freaking game?!

I dont play the game

Yes, you do. The rules of The Game say so.

1. You are always playing The Game.
2. Whenever you think about The Game, you lose.
3. Loss must be announced.

Also, we all just lost.

I wonder if this counts as meme spam? I'd hate to have to ban myself <.<

That would certainly set a rather curious precedent, but you're not allowed to rule on cases involving you.

To be frank, and I don't mean to offend anyone, I couldn't give a flying doo-doo about the rules, the game is stupid and the person who invented it is an idiot.

[Czardas]

To be frank, and I don't mean to offend anyone, I couldn't give a flying doo-doo about the rules, the game is stupid and the person who invented it is an idiot.

You're welcome not to play if you don't want to.

[Azzers]

To be frank, and I don't mean to offend anyone, I couldn't give a flying doo-doo about the rules, the game is stupid and the person who invented it is an idiot.

You're welcome not to play if you don't want to.

I'll take you up on that offer my friend