To help their son overcome social anxiety, a set of parents took a controversial approach. Instead of sitting beside him on flights, they intentionally book his seat separately, encouraging him to interact with strangers.
While the parents believe they are doing their son a service, others argue that a flight is not the time or place to teach lessons about socializing.
In a since-deleted Reddit postthe boy’s parents revealed that when they first adopted him, the child struggled with severe social anxiety and fear of strangers due to past abuse.
Over the past few years, the parents have used their frequent airplane travel to help their son overcome his fears. All they do is book him a separate seat away from them so that he’ll have no choice but to interact with strangers.
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“(We) found that using the airplane-controlled environment is an excellent way to teach him that most strangers aren’t out to get him and how to recognize social cues,” they wrote.
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“It’s worked amazingly well,” they claimed. “In the span of three years, he’s gone from clinging to my arm in fear on flights to the point of needing mild sedation to striking up small talk to flight attendants, to now asking to sit by himself in the middle seat … for a chance of talking to someone new.”
Still, no matter where their son sits, the parents noted that they are always seated just a few rows behind him, keeping him in view.
However, their social anxiety remedy encountered an unforeseen issue on a recent flight.
“On a recent flight he was put between a husband and wife,” the parents wrote of their son. “These were… less than pleasant people. Not judging (nor do I care) but before we could even push back from the gate, I could hear the two of them asking whose kid this was, why was he by himself, was he abandoned, and just being outright unpleasant.”
Now, the parents are questioning if they are wrong to subject others to their son just so that they can teach them a lesson about socialization.
Commenters pointed out that it was not the flight attendant’s nor other passenger’s responsibility to babysit or entertain the little boy.
“It sounds like he is getting more confident in these situations, which is great, but it also sounds like you have the expectation that the people sitting next to him will be happy to play along,” one Redditor wrote. “It’s not their job to humor your child. Maybe they struggle with flying themselves or are upset because of something that has happened in their personal life, or just plain don’t feel like interacting with a chatty 10-year-old kid for the next several hours.”
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“This system of socialization is very inconsiderate to the poor strangers on the plane that you have now saddled with babysitting and entertaining your ten-year-old. They didn’t ask for that,” another user noted. “Conversing with him and teaching him about the world is NOT anybody’s responsibility but yours.”
Others believed that it was potentially dangerous for the little boy to be separated from his parents during a flight. There could be an emergency where the boy needs their help, or his seatmate could be a predator looking to take advantage of him since he appears to be unaccompanied.
While it is a parent’s duty to teach their children about social cues and how to interact with new people, it is not strangers’ job to socialize with them, keep them safe, or offer their shoulders as a pillow for them to sleep on.
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It all starts by teaching kids at home in an environment where they feel secure.
Zack Kasaboa school counselor shared in a TikTok one of the most effective strategies parents can use to help their children manage their social anxiety.
“Kids with social anxiety hate when the attention is on them cause they feel like others are judging everything about them,” Kasabo explained. Children who have a history of abuse, like the little boy, may also hate when the attention is on them, fearing that it makes them an easier target of victimization.
Luckily, Kasabo has a method that puts the attention right back on the other people or person the child is interacting with, using an exercise with an “attention ball.”
The attention ball is just a toy ball that a parent and child toss back and forth to each other while practicing conversation.
“The objective is to get rid of the ball by giving a quick response, then asking a question to get rid of the attention,” Kasabo said. The goal is to make children feel less anxious about giving answers and focus on questions they can ask other people or people in social situations.
According to Cincinnati Children’s Hospitalsocial anxiety affects up to 5% of children and is the third most common psychiatric disorder in children.
It can be intimidating interacting with new people, especially when you don’t have an idea of how they’ll respond and treat you. However, communicating with strangers is a crucial part of our everyday lives that we have to do more often than we realize.
We order our morning coffee from a complete stranger behind the counter. We speak to receptionists we’ve never interacted with before to book doctor’s appointments. Almost everyone you meet and become friends with is a stranger at some point.
That’s exactly why some parents give their children an opportunity to overcome their social anxiety and fear of new people by having them order themselves at a restaurant or interact with other kids at the playground. However, it seems air travel is not the ideal avenue to teach this lesson.
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Megan Quinn is a writer at YourTango who covers entertainment and news, self, love, and relationships.
