Passengers on a flight from Guiyang to Shanghai this past Saturday locked a crying toddler in an airplane lavatory in order to quiet her. The toddler, who appeared to be about one year old, was traveling with her grandparents and had been in tears non-stop throughout the nearly three-hour flight.
Video was posted to China’s Douyin, similar to TikTok. A women is heard telling the toddler, “We won’t let you out unless you stop crying,” as the child struggled to reach the door while sitting on the woman’s lap. Once the girl calmed down, the woman filming the video picked her up and warned her, “If you make any noise again, we’ll come back (to the bathroom).” The video, posted to show how they managed to quiet the child (in positive light), went viral due to outrage.
According to Juneyao Airlines, which confirmed details of the incident in a statement, the toddler’s grandmother agreed to the women taking her grandchild to the bathroom to “educate her.” The airline said that the grandmother stood outside the bathroom door during the entire incident. The carrier later issued an apology, acknowledging an “oversight of the crew” for allowing it, and condemning the behavior of the two passengers.
Online outrage prompted several viewers of the video to file police reports against the women, though the Guizhou Airport Public Security Bureau did not press charges, citing the grandmother’s consent.
The grandmother defended her actions in her now-deleted Douyin post, saying she wanted to ensure a restful flight for the other passengers.
She claimed that many passengers were using tissues to block their ears from the noise of the crying childSome had moved to the back of the plane to escape the sound.She wanted to take action rather than be a bystander.
I just wanted to calm the child down and let everyone rest.
The incident has reignited discussions in China about so-called “bear children,” a term used to describe young children who cause disturbances in public.
I’d point out that the lavatory doesn’t block sufficient sound to keep noise out of the cabin. At age one the punishment probably isn’t effective. Brief time outs do work, especially approaching age two. And the question the girl’s family should be asking is what they were doing leading up to the flight, in terms of consistent expectations-setting but also preparation with activities that both engage but also mellow (because travel can be overwhelming to a toddler, with all the strange people and unfamiliar places).