"Are you sitting down or am I putting you in your seat? If you don't choose, I will put you in your seat".

Follow through in 5 seconds, problem fixed. The kid might cry, but oh well. No need to be rough or scream.

My father would have literally sat on me. I know this because he did it. Several times.

If I had behaved like that, my parents would have kicked me out of the plane without a parachute. And if I survived that, I could walk home bare foot in the snow. And my room had better be cleaned when they got home.

i swear sometimes you can just 'see' through their behaviour the adults who were never disciplined at all and were allowed to do everything with abandon. Everything - including completely cancelling a flight of 150 passengers and being told its not their fault when it clearly was....

Every time I did something like this my parents ensured that I 'eventually obeyed' . And YES they did go overboard most of the time in most of these situations cause they are not the best of parents , sadly. But you have to find the middle ground when youre dealing with children in situatiins like these. Tell the kid:

"You enjoy when we fly out to see aunty right?" The kid: "well...yeah." "OK! So you have 3 options. Either stay in your seat and be quiet until the end of the flight, Ill duct tape you to the seat to ensure you dont move anywhere, or Ill take both of us off this flight right now and youll never get to see ANYONE for the next 3 years cause youll be grounded for the next 3 years....Pick Now!"

Theres a notable amount of situations where a child / teen will not learn anything until you or even society forces them to learn something. People get mad when we convict some people to life in prison without parole but there are some so thoroughly-incorrectly-raised adult-children out hrre who you HAVE to give a life sentence cause it would take them no less thsn 100 years to learn the lesson(s) they need to learn.

"Police your chidren...or the world will."

If my offspring is being such a demon that we can't stay on the plane, I guess the trip's cancelled.

Of course since mine is currently a hyperactive 2 year old, we're just not going on any flights any time soon. In a few years if things haven't gotten better, I'll have the lil' demon checked for ADHD as I have it myself, just lucky enough to be inattentive rather than hyperactive myself.

So far I've gotten through all this hell without any physical punishment whatsoever by 1) avoiding situations where said demon spawn has opportunities to be an even bigger demon (hence no flights), 2) being very clear about what "no" and "stop" mean and 3) making good use of a more stern voice when something's wrong, to the point that a stern "no" is met with pouting and acceptance rather than protest most of the time. Also most of the time I do say no, I also explain why something shouldn't be done. It's pretty damn difficult being a single parent of a barely verbal sonic the hedgehog and I'm sure my methods are far from perfect, but I'm just hoping that I get more things right than wrong.

I also think that boy's parents have no excuse. I've gotten my kid to behave fairly well compared to a year ago, I'm still not going on a plane any time soon. That boy is at least a few years older. You know your kid's personality by that time for sure. If you know it's going to be hell, then just don't fly with him unless it's an absolute necessity (which it rarely is).