Replies

My husband and I recently had two different situations where kids were horribly misbehaving . One was on an airplane where the kid was purposely kicking the back of my seat the entire time and the other was at a zoo where several kids, on several occasions were running into to us, cutting in line, yelling, etc. It was so out of hand all through the park, we cut short our visit. It's not the kids, it's the parents,imo. The parents obviously knew what was going on and did nothing to stop it. In fact, the parents weren't much better.

Our kids probably would have done the same, had we let them. If they did try it once, they soon learned to not even think about trying it again. Fortunately, no belts or spanking were ever necessary. A quick grab and the fear brought on by "the look" they got was enough for them to stop dead in their tracks, lol. In all fairness though, our kids were/are pretty laid back, so maybe we were just very fortunate in this area.

I feel for you. A plane is the worst! You have nowhere to run. We were on an international flight - from Switzerland back to the U.S. and this Swiss couple had three kids - baby and two around 8 and 5; the older kids were just holy terrors. It was, without a doubt, the worst flight I ever had; of course, I am always happy when I survive any flight, so I try to keep things in perspective.

I had that seat-kickin' brat behind me on a flight a few years back.

I tried harrumphing. I tried shooting glares at the kid through the cracks between the seats. Those didn't work so I had to take more drastic measures.

I stood up (sorta) and turned around (sorta). Very politely, with my best Texas manners, I said to the brat's mother, "You have a choice, ma'am. You can stop your child kicking my seat, or I will stop your child kicking my seat."

I think it helped that I was bent over the seat back and about four inches from Mom, and I take up a LOT of real estate in a small area like that.