Travel with kids is not an easy process, especially when other passengers shoot you the side eye before you even get your family seated. Take control of the situation when flying and book seats in an L-shape to counteract seat-kicking by your child.
Picture: pagedooley/Flickr
This formation, with an adult next to and in front of the kid, prevents them from kicking the back of a stranger’s seat. Of course, the best course of action is to raise your child in such a way that they don’t kick strangers — but if it’s taking a bit of time for that lesson to sink in, this is a decent workaround. For more tips on travelling with children, check out the full post via the link below.
What to Do When a Kid Won’t Stop Kicking Your Airline Seat [Conde Nast Traveller]
Comments
2 responses to “Reserve Seats In An L Shape To Prevent Your Kids From Kicking Seats”
As the parent of a nearly 2 1/2 year old who recently went on 7 long haul flights totalling 56hrs flight time in 4 weeks (Yeah we are a bit crazy!) we can recommend the following.
Take snacks – as many as you can physically carry (then some!) because they will eat every last one of them.
Contact the airline(s) well in advance requesting kids meals. They always come out first and are usually accompanied with stickers/toys or a bit of distraction.
Take tech! Phones,tablets,chargers and spare chargers (my HP Touchpad running Android ONLY charges with one adaptor and it had to be the one that Mr 2 1/2 broke along the way!)
Keep as cool as can be – This is hard with a toddler at the best of times, however when we were stressed so was our son. The other passengers were looking to see how we were handling the situation more than the kid crying. Remember you are an adult!
Be friendly to the cabin crew – they made these trips so much tolerable by popping past with treats, crayons and even snacks from business class. They also loved chatting with him down the back of the plane – it was good to keep moving too.
If heading to Europe via UAE, both Etihad and Emirates have a Nanny on board. They are absolutely brilliant and help out wherever possible.
If you have done all this and your kid is still kicking up – you have done pretty much everything possible and the other passengers will have to deal with it. They might be a bit put out by a crying kid, but hey – they will either end up doing it one day or they can put in their earplugs. The parents can’t do that so make the most of it and order another scotch. 🙂
Or, you can do what my parents did – smack them into submission. The little brats will learn the lesson of consequences. Yesterday on a flight I watched a little kid jump around in his seat during take-off, pull and kick the seat in front of him, and play his smartphone game at high volume. Throughout all of this his mother was concentrating on her Facebook app on her own phone. Sometimes parents need a smack too…
Or, do what I’ve done in the past and continue to do, not have children!