Method for quieting child on plane: Works better without the vomit

by Jamie Rhein on

Too bad Pamela Root, the latest woman to be kicked off a plane with her child because of her child’s behavior, didn’t have Lisa Belkin’s method of calming down a screaming toddler. Not the whole method though, just part of it. The whole version is gross. And yes, it is funny–very funny. But it is gross, very gross as well. It’s also a cautionary tale of sorts regarding those handy barf bags tucked into an airplane’s seat back pockets.

Belkin, who writes for the Motherlode blog in the New York Times, recounts her own trapped-on-a plane-with-an-unruly toddler story. In Belkin’s case, it was her own toddler who would not be consoled. Well aware of the looks of horror and sympathy being directed her way by the other passengers, and the not so friendly skies look of the flight attendant who was closest to her, Belkin feared being jettisoned off the plane.

In a flash of brilliance, Belkin pulled the barf bag out of a seat pocket, drew a face on it, slipped her hand inside and turned her hand into a puppet show. Her child stopped crying immediately, pleased as punch.

Belkin, figuring that if one puppet was a hit, two might be Oscar winning material, thrust her other hand into another barf bag. Unfortunately, someone already had found a use for the barf bag– the use for which it was meant.

Yep. There was Belkin, her hand in a barf bag covered with vomit, and her puppet show at a screeching halt. Fortunately, her husband, who had not been very useful up to that point, was there to help out while Belkin bounded for the restroom lickety split for a sanitation session in the lavatory before the plane took off.

After reading Belkin’s story, I’m thankful that when I used a barf bag this summer to hold my son’s Lego airplane pieces from the toy I bought at the Detroit airport, I didn’t have a mess to clean up. Vomit on Legos? Gaad.

I bought the toy as a way to keep him occupied on our way to Venice via Amsterdam. Fortunately, he’s at the age where the in-flight movies do the trick just fine.

The TSA took my baby story: The relationship between psychology, customer service and traveling with a young one

by Jamie Rhein on

After watching the TSA video of the mother blogger who claimed in a post on her blog “My Bottle’s Up” that a TSA agent temporarily took her baby son out of her sight during the security screening process at the Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson airport, I had thoughts about TSA security screening.

Katie wrote a post about this incident earlier today, but there are other points worth making, particularly when considering factors that helped create this partly true, partly fabricated TSA vs. passenger story–even if the fabrications may not have been intentional.

There are a couple of details about this incident that indicate that perhaps TSA still has a bit of work to do when it comes to perfecting customer service and truly understanding human psychology and behavior.

Although I’ve been generally impressed with most TSA agents, there are times when it has been clear to me that bad practices can have adverse effects.

Here are points that came to mind when I looked into this latest TSA vs. passenger story:

1. People who are flying are consumers. They’ve paid for a flight. That means they have expectations of being able to catch their flights. This can produce anxiety if expectations and reality are not matching up when TSA’s security measures become cumbersome, time-consuming and seem ridiculous.

2. A person flying alone with a young child has a bit of paraphernalia to deal with. Along with the child, consider the stroller, bottle, diaper bag, and various objects the caregiver has brought along to keep the child happy. It’s enough of a process to get belongings for one person ready for security. Add in the rigmarole it takes to take a child through the security check, and there’s potential for more anxiety.

3. TSA is a government entity that has all the power at a security check. Regardless that most TSA agents are splendid and do their jobs with the highest professionalism, there are jerks–not many, but there are some.

Plus, there are passengers who have had bad experiences with authority figures–or have anxiety about authority figures. There’s something about going through security that can make even the most law abiding citizens worry.

4. When the mother did get red flagged for a security check because the alarm went off, she was put, along with her child, in a clear box-like room with Plexiglas walls. That seems like a recipe for high anxiety. Why wasn’t she checked as soon as she beeped? Why the box-like room? The more I watched her in the room, the more anxious I felt. She was stuck until someone made a move.

First, there she is holding a young child and being ignored. Watch how many times her hand goes up as she’s trying to get someone’s attention. Watch how her feet are shifting. She’s having problems. Certainly it’s not rocket science to know that people with young children don’t really need to be put in a box-like room without knowing how long they’ll need to wait in it, if at all. Frankly, making people wait before getting the wand feels like a bit of a power play to me.

5. When you are stuck in a box- like room, but the others around you are able to go about their merry way, it can make you feel even worse. While the woman is in the room with her child, others are passing through security without a hitch. Why wouldn’t this put her on edge? Or is the role of TSA really about testing our patience?

6. Even when she was finally checked, the process was maddeningly slow. She was then taken over to sit in a chair for an even longer amount of time. For some reason TSA kept talking to her. I can imagine the “Yoooouuur in a huuurrryyy arrre yyyyouuuuu? Trying to catch a flight? This will teach you a lesson about trying to get TSA to hurry, and I’d watch the attitude, Lady.”

Running a wand over someone should be quick and easy. I’ve been wanded a few times myself. In my experience, it”s been a slam dunk process. This woman was checked and rechecked. She could have completely undressed and got dressed again longer than it took TSA to clear her. The whole time she was being checked, her baby is off to the side in the stroller. There’s nothing worse as a parent to be in a situation when you are in a busy place with your eye off your child. The child was not taken anywhere, but the woman might have been thinking the child could have been.

Even though TSA did not separate this woman from her child, as the woman claimed an agent did, I’d say that TSA didn’t do a whole lot to ensure that this woman would give them high marks on customer service. If anything, it looks to me like the TSA agent was having a bit of a power play.

In Katie’s post, she mentioned that she didn’t think the woman was separated from her belongings like she claims she was. I think she was.

From what I saw, a woman with blond hair gathered the belongings off the conveyor belt. It took some time for the mother to be reunited with her belongings, some of which belonged to her child. One of the belongings was a laptop. It doesn’t take long for a laptop to be snatched.

Like Katie said, the woman didn’t appear to make a phone call to her mother or her husband on her cell phone like she claimed she did–unless it is a teensy tiny cell phone that none of us can see.

Maybe it was a cell phone of her imagination–the one that she uses whenever she’s fending off an anxiety attack. Regardless of the details about this story that are not true, TSA at this particular airport, at least, still has some work to do.

Perhaps this particular TSA could take pointers from this security sign at the airport in Houston.

“Families and Those Needing Special Attention” are listed first. “Small children; strollers” are under the first bullet point.

If a mom (or a dad) and the baby in arms beep, help them first–with a smile. Say, “Sorry to inconvience you, but I need to find out why you beeped. Thanks for your understanding.”

It will work like a charm.

Travelers Tool Kit: Shae by Air, DVD for kids about air travel

by Jamie Rhein on

This week I lent a friend of mine two large suitcases with wheels, a carry-on sized bag with wheels and the DVD, Shae by Air: Every Child can Be a Good Little Traveler. She was heading off to Bolivia on her own with her three children, ages 7, 4 and 2.

The more we talked about air travel with kids, the more I remembered the DVD. The DVD is geared towards young children who have not flown before, or those who may need a refresher about what to expect. Because the angles of the shots are from the kid’s perspective, children are more likely to be drawn into the story.

I could have used this DVD several years ago. The first time my daughter flew she was 3-years-old and didn’t know English. We took great pains to have the interpreter talk with her about the things she could expect once we got on the plane. However, I forgot those details that would happen from the airport door to the plane. Because we were flying from Hanoi, departure was low key. If we had been navigating a large airport, the experience may have been overwhelming. This was also before 9/11 and air travel changed. Having this DVD would have helped when we left Singapore.

Shae by Air covers each step as creator Scotty Kober uses her own daughter’s first journey–a trip to Paris, as a focal point for the explanations. Starting with packing a suitcase with a few toys and items to keep busy on the plane, the DVD is a charming look at travel from a kid’s perspective.

Kober’s voice captures the excitement of a child’s first trip, while including those details that could stump even the seasoned parent traveler. Long lines and TSA can be nerve-wracking at times even for those who know what to do. For a child, taking off a coat, and putting the stuffed animal or doll down on the conveyor belt so the items can go on a trip through the X-ray machine can be daunting. Leaving mom, dad or the adult in charge on one side of the metal detector while the child goes through and then waiting for the adult to come through can be alarming.

Handing tickets over to the gate attendant, finding a seat, storing luggage, putting on a seat belt and eating snacks are also included in the narrative. So is an explanation about ear popping and what to do about it. You’ll be pleased to know that Kober also includes not bothering the other passengers by kicking the seat in front.

When I showed this video to my son when he was four, he pronounced it a thumbs up, even though he had flown before and knows what to expect. For him, watching Shae take her trip was a way to see what he knows. She’s also a darling little girl. Listening to the narrative and watching Shae calmed me down.

For my friend who is hopefully squared away with her three kids in Bolivia visiting family who lives there, I hope the DVD helped her kids know what to do on their trip so that mom and the passengers around them had a smooth, uneventful ride. Or if there were events, they didn’t cause them.

The DVD comes with a made for kids packing list and two-luggage tags that my son also enjoyed playing with. They made him feel grown up.

Although the narrative doesn’t include every last detail of flying its a good start. People flying with kids could think of those details not in the DVD and explain them. You could even say, “What would Shae do in this situation?”

Galley Gossip: A question about traveling with car seats and strollers

by Heather Poole on

Dear Heather,

Okay, so how bad is to have a one-year old on a plane without an actual ‘seat’? Please tell me it’s not the worst thing in the world????I wanted to bring a car seat on board, but they won’t let us because we’re not buying her a ticket. Also, should we check the stroller on the plane? We have a bugaboo, and I hate for it to get ruined, but it breaks down very easily. We could get a bag for it? Do you know if they make specific bags for strollers? Any advice please????????????

Thanks,
Marlo

Dear Marlo,

It’s not the worst thing in the world to have a one-year old on the airplane without an actual seat! Now take a deep breath and relax, Marlo, because you are a good mother, whether you buy that seat or not, and you’re going to need all that nervous energy in flight entertaining your daughter. Trust me, I know. Whenever I travel with my little one, regardless of how well behaved he is, I always end up feeling completely drained by the end of the trip.

As a flight attendant, it is my duty to tell you that it is safer for your daughter to travel strapped into a car seat that has been secured to an airplane seat. But let’s get real for a minute, because that, I know, is not always possible for some to do, particularly in this day and age when people are just struggling to survive. With that said, I must tell you that I have traveled with my son, along with my guilt, minus the car seat, on the airplane one or two times. My advice to you is to keep your seat belt fastened during the flight while you hold your daughter in your lap, because turbulence happens, even when the seat belt sign is not on.

You stated that you want to bring your car seat on-board, but the airline won’t let you because you are not buying the extra seat. I do not know which airline you are traveling on, but if you were traveling on the carrier I work for, I’d tell you to take the car seat with you anyway, just in case there is an open seat available. If there’s not an extra seat, the airline, at least my airline, would then gate check your car seat. Key word is gate check. Gate check means you are checking the item at the gate. Once at your destination, the car seat (or stroller) will meet you at the aircraft door, not at baggage claim.

If you do bring a car seat on-board the aircraft, please please please make sure it is approved by the FAA and do read the installation instructions before it is time to install the thing. I can not tell you how many times people come aboard and do not know how their car seat operates and get angry at me when I can not tell them how THEIR car seat works. There are hundreds of different makes and models produced each and every year, so unless you come across a flight attendant who has a child that uses the exact same model as you, chances are that flight attendant is not going to be able to help.

When traveling with a lap child, try to get an aisle seat. With so little leg room, it is impossible to get anything out of the diaper bag when the seat in front of you is reclined and there’s a baby sitting on your lap. If you are in an aisle seat, you’ll be able to swing the diaper bag into the aisle in order to grab whatever you need out of the bag – bottles, diapers, toys, etc. Just make sure to check and see that the drink cart is not rolling in your direction beforehand. And if there is a drink cart parked at your row, ask the flight attendants if they can spare a few plastic cups, “stacking cups”, in order to keep baby busy for a good five minutes. Hey, every minute counts when you’re on the airplane with a child.

As for the stroller, I also own a Bugaboo (as well as a BOB for jogging and a Maclaren that I keep in New York) and I can not say that the Bugaboo breaks down easily, not when you’re in a hurry and you’ve got your hands full, nor can I imagine lugging that thing with me anywhere, except to the mall, and perhaps to the beach for a nice leisurely walk. Keep in mind that if you do decide to check the Bugaboo, most likely you will have to pay a checked bag fee, and add that fee to the price you’re going to pay for the Bugaboo transport bag, and you’ll be paying close to $200. While I do love my Bugaboo, I don’t love it THAT much. And I would not want to be the passenger standing behind the Bugaboo family at security. When it comes to travel, think light, think easy, and think disposable. Whenever I travel with my son, I use a cheap umbrella stroller I bought at Target. What I like about the stroller, besides the fact that it was cheap, is that I can attach it to my rollaboard, if the kid feels like walking, or hang it in the closet, so that I don’t have to check it, and if I do have to check it and it does get ruined, big deal, I’m out $25.

Hope that helps!

Happy travels,

Heather

Airfare watchdog’s survey of how much would you pay to fly without kids?

by Jamie Rhein on

In her New York Times travel column “Motherlode,” Lisa Belkin recently wrote about flying with children. She titled it, “The Less-Than-Friendly-Skies.”

As a person who once traveled with babies and young kids (according to her bio, her children are now teenagers) Belkin has sympathy for people who travel with children and mentions those who have problems with children on planes as “crotchety.”

It’s not that she isn’t sympathetic to the plight of those who don’t have kids with them who are on an airplane with folks who have brought their kids along, but she tends to feel more for the parents who have the kids–and the kids. She recalls the days back when airlines gave kids pilot wings and flight attendants had the time and energy to treat kids like special passengers instead of more work.

Belkin cites a survey at airfarewatchdog.com where people vote according to their travel preference when it comes to money and kids. How much money would you pay extra for a flight that doesn’t allow kids on board?

At this point, only 38% would not pay more for a ticket. The higher the dollar amount, the lower the percentage would pay the extra cash. 20% would pay $10 more, but only 9% would pay more than $40. (For survey, click here.)

And who would those people be? Belkin thinks it’s parents with young kids who would like to take a flight where they could actually have time to read a magazine.