The Transportation Safety Administration has a whole page dedicated to letting the American traveler know how they will treat you and your children when you travel by airplane.
They want you to know that they still have to screen kids, that not even kids are exempt from security checks. I’m glad to know that; there are simply too many unscrupulous people in the world who would use their kids as weapons to harm others.
They do say, though (and I liked this):
We will not ask you to do anything that will separate you from your child or children. We specially train our Security Officers and they understand your concern for your children. They will approach your children gently and treat them with respect. If your child becomes uncomfortable or upset, security officers will consult you about the best way to relieve your child’s concern.
I just really liked the way they promised to treat our kids with respect; we don’t get much of that, do we?
Of course, besides going through the electric scanner thingy and taking our shoes off, there are other security concerns with traveling with kids. We, the parents, have to make sure our kids are crystal clear on a few things before we ever enter the airport:
- Never go further away from parents than an arm’s length (for smaller kids) or two chairs’ length (for bigger kids).
- Never go anywhere alone. Small kids must always go with a parent, and if that means taking a boy into the ladies’ room or a girl into the men’s room, so be it. Teens can go to a few limited places without parents, but only with a sibling or buddy.
- Do not talk to strangers.
- Do not let anyone give you anything.
- Secure your carry on item and wallet or purse. Never let these things out of your sight.
- Eat before you get to the airport; airport food costs about 20 times more than food anywhere else.
- If someone touches you–even just a brush-up-against kind of touch, tell a parent immediately.
You are allowed to bring formula, breast milk, or juice with you on a flight, but you have to let the security personnel know you have it. They might check it for explosives, but they won’t require you to empty it out or to taste it.
Pretty sick world we live in where a terrorist might disguise explosives as breast milk, huh?
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Tags: airplane, airplaneAmerican, airport, airport food, breast milk, buddy, disguise, explosives, flight, formula, guard, juice, kid, ladies' room, men's room, parent, personnel, purse, respect, screen, security, security checks, sibling, strangers, teen, teens, terrorist, traveler, TSA, wallet
