A family travel influencer is pitching a “cheap, no-screen” toddler airplane activity: bringing a roll of painter’s tape and letting the kid stick, peel, and re-stick it to make “roads, shapes, letters and games” on their seat and tray area of an American Airlines Airbus A321.
Here, the toddler is seated and quietly playing with a roll of blue painter’s tape. The tape is run in long strips across the seat. It’s stuck to:
- the seatbacks and tray table in front
- the seat and armrest area around the child
- and the wall and window next to the child
Their pitch: “Flying with toddlers? Don’t buy toys. Bring this.”
Reactions break down into three main camps:
- Control your kid. Kids should sit still. Parents are lazy. The cabin isn’t a playroom. One person suggested: “Tape your child to the chair.”
- Quiet kid beats screaming and running. Maybe this isn’t perfection but it’s an improvement over the alternative. The child is seated, quiet, occupied, and not running the aisle.
- Don’t trash the plane. Tape has residue. Parents probably leave it behind for cleaners. This isn’t your living room. And by the way, the area should stay clear for safety and egress. Plenty of people criticize the waste of tape which is a bit rich when they are literally burning jet fuel, but o.k.
Painter’s tape is marketed for clean removal without residue. That doesn’t mean it’s always true, but should be if handled correctly. You should keep a ziploc bag for used tape, clean up before deplaning, and leave the area better than you found it, and don’t put tape on any surface that’s even arguably someone else’s space.
There’s been a long-standing debate over whether it’s okay to let kids draw on planes with crayons if they’re supposedly erasable, though passengers let their kids draw on the tray table and then don’t clean it.
They’ll even help the kids draw on their seat back trays. And parents have left Delta first class seats trashed after giving their kid a sticker gun, too.
Maybe have them use painters tape on the OUTSIDE to redo the aircraft’s livery while in flight. Big time and cost saver for the airline (American take note)! BTW, just a joke for anyone who might take this seriously.
I guess giving the kid a coloring book was too difficult. The question is did the parents take the tape down or just leave it? Parenting in 2026. Their kids are supposed to be your problem.
If it keeps the child quiet and entertained, then it is fine with one caveat – Parents need to clean up afterwards.
Looks like.a typical AA seat.
Way past time to stop letting parents turn premium cabins into kiddie play pens. If the parents can’t control them. then move to the back or better still, leave them at home with granny or nanny.
Our imminent future of dramatically more expensive airfares will bring an end to this nonsense in short order.
ditto george: coloring books and crayolas
this is just a slightly subtler version of children kicking the seat in front of them, adults or children protruding their feet past the seat in front of them or the worst, dipshit adult females draping 4 feet of hair over their seatbacks in to the space behind them
the stupidity of this timeline is immeasurable with current technology
If parents confine it to a small area, then pick it up, it’s fine. Letting it stick for an extended time would be another story. Also upon removal use the wad to pick up crumbs from the floor. Win-win.
Did anyone notice?? How often do you get an empty middle seat??
Maybe Dad got upgraded?