Kids Fly Free

Three Florida kids made the news yesterday when they managed to get aboard a Southwest Airlines flight and fly by themselves to Nashville without their parent's knowledge. Bridget Brown, age fifteen, invited her thirteen year old friend, Bobby Nolan, to go along. Her eleven year brother also travel with them. Bridget purchased the tickets using $700 in cash she had earned babysitting. Once in Music City, reality set in and the kids phoned home. The girl's grandmother paid for their tickets to return home.

Both Southwest Airlines and the Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) are taking some heat for allowing the kids on the plane in the first place. Southwest states their policy allows kids twelve and over to fly alone. Other airlines have similar rules. The brother was allowed to fly with them since his two companions were over twelve. The TSA said the kids were allowed through security because then had boarding passes. Children under sixteen are not required to have an ID since they are not old enough to have a drivers license.

My first question when I heard the story was, where were the parents? One reality in a world where parents work is kids are left home unsupervised. It becomes especially acute during the summer when kids have unstructured time. A bigger question is how a fifteen year old can have access to $700 in discretionary funds. Granted, Bridget had earned the money babysitting, but what was she doing with that kind of money stashed in her room? Again, where were the parents? What happened to the days when mom and dad said, "let's open a savings account and keep the money safe."

Working parents do face a dilemma during the summer months. How do I balance my professional schedule with my parental responsibility. It become even more of a challenge when the kids are become teens. They not only are no longer candidates for a day care program, but possess the opinion that they can manage on their own. Still, we are the adults and they are the kids. Carrying through on our responsibility is defintely easier with the technology of cell phones. It seems to me that discretionary time requires the need for guidelines. When you sit down and do that, make sure your kids understand they can't leave the state without your permission.