Peekaboo is one of those games that has plenty of opportunity to go awry. Don't pay enough attention and you get a tantrum; pretend too hard the kid is missing and they may get scared; play too intensely and you may get sued ...
OK, so that third scenario isn't likely, but for an air steward on Virgin Blue, a game of peekaboo meant his job and now the airline is being sued. Natalie Williamson claims he put her 17-month-old son Riley in the overhead locker while on a flight from Fiji to Sydney and closed the latch for "up to 10 seconds" after getting a bit overzealous during a game of peekaboo with the toddler.
Note, the child was only in the compartment for one sixth of a minute, but his mother claims he has been traumatized. The child's mother told Nine News:
He won't leave my sight now. He sleeps with me. If I'm not in the same room as him, he will scream and yell, "Mum, mum, mum."
Does anyone else think this smacks of money grubbing? I'm not suggesting that putting the child in the compartment was a good thing. Most certainly it wasn't and the air steward should have been reprimanded. I could even see a few free tickets going to the family in order to make it all better. But come on? Traumatized for life? Really?
The story makes a small note of the fact that the parents of the boy are currently estranged. Not to extrapolate too much from that, since we never really know what goes on in another family, but isn't it possible that there was fighting going on? Perhaps there were other things that the child might have been scared of?
I am no child psychologist, but I find this pretty reprehensible. In no way do I actually believe that 10 seconds in an overhead compartment traumatized this child for life. This mom wants money and she thinks this is a good way to get it. They fired the steward, which maybe he deserves (especially because those compartments are really not safe for any human, let alone a baby), but come on now. This is just ludicrous.
Do you think it's possible this child was "traumatized" by 10 seconds of peekaboo?
Image via jeremyfoo/Flickr
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Comments 63
Both of my kids would have been distraught because of it. And I've done a nice job with allowing the younger one to be independent and secure.
Strangers are strangers. Kids fear them for good reason. Strangers should know stranger's places..
I guarantee that my secure happy kids would be filled with fear after such an event that most people would call minor.
they are NOT suing over a game of peekaboo, and the flight attendant should be fired.
I am a child mental health therapist. I can see how this would be scary for the child and trigger some seperation anxiety or claustrophobia ( temporaliry), "traumatized" seems a bit extreme. Plus, what on earth will money do to solve that? Pay for therapy? I highly doubt that would be necessary, nor do I think the parents would even do that. Classic case of money grubbing.
I think the mother is just after some money. I do not think a 60 second in the overhead department Traumatized the kid. She claim the kid do not want to leave her side not even for a minute. Well he 17 months old, of course he doesn't. At that age a mother is their whole wold.
Like others have mentioned there are a lot of questions to really get to the root of the matter. Maybe the child is now clingy after their trip, where did they go, what did they do? The mother allows a child that age to run up and down the aisle of an airplane and get picked up by a strange person what else does she allow?
Sounds like her way of coping with an energetic toddler is to just let him go, so much can happen in a second's notice, as the story illustrates.
so who is suing this negligent mother for letting her child be placed into the overhead compartment by a stranger??
This is stupid. Obviously he shouldn't have done what he did, but it was a dumb mistake that didn't cause any real harm. Traumatized my butt.
I agree with everyone else, bad call by the steward, needs a kick in the pants, but seriously suing? I have a rambunctious 2 yo that I fly with and she sits on her bum, and NO ONE takes her from me EVER. I do what most moms do and pre plan with lots of activity's and hopefully a tired kid before gettingon the plane.
The steward either doesn't have kids so didn't think through the consequenses or is extremely comfortable with kids and their capacity not to break. btw how dioes she know he will be traumatized for life????