Scary reptiles don’t match my idea of fun entertainment, so I haven’t seen “Snakes on a Plane.” I did send a DVD of it to my 20-year-old for his birthday, and I’ll admit it’s got a catchy title.

It’s so catchy that last week it was stuck in my head – well, not exactly. I couldn’t shake a variation of it after reading about the family booted off an AirTran Airways flight after their crying 3-year-old wouldn’t get in her seat before takeoff.

Brats on a plane? What traveler – or for that matter what grocery shopper or restaurant diner – hasn’t witnessed kids creating a ruckus?

You know I’d be too polite to call children “brats,” were it not for the subliminal suggestion of that campy film title.

Anyway, I read an Associated Press article about the Jan. 14 incident. The family was not only reimbursed the cost of the flight, but also offered three free tickets to anywhere the airline flies.

It’s easy to chime in with what we’d do in a situation similar to what Julie and Gerry Kulesza experienced with their daughter, Elly, as they boarded a Florida-to-Boston flight.

According to an airline spokeswoman quoted by AP, Elly was crying, hitting her parents, climbing under the seat and wouldn’t sit down. The couple said they needed more time to calm her down.

I know what I wouldn’t do. I wouldn’t ask the airline and all the other passengers for more time. It wouldn’t be pretty, but I’d somehow get a hold of the kid, sit her down, and buckle the seat belt.

No hitting, no yelling, but in the sense of a child weighing 30-some pounds being physically controlled by an adult outweighing her by more than 100 pounds, you could say I’d use force.

It’s easy to criticize parents who appeared to let their 3-year-old control a bad situation. But haven’t most parents been there themselves at one time or another?

It seems almost the nature of tantrums that they happen in public. Kids are smart. They know you don’t want to shout at the supermarket.

We also live in a time when many view any spanking as wrong. Earlier this month, Democrat Sally Lieber of the California State Assembly proposed a law that would make spanking a child under age 4 a misdemeanor punishable by jail time or a $1,000 fine.

Looking for a calmer head than mine, I called Lisa Neumann, director of the Edmonds Community College Center for Families. The center offers Head Start, child care and a cooperative preschool for children of EdCC students and staff.

Neumann said it “makes me cringe” to hear talk of parents using force. Asked how she’d have handled the airplane situation, she said it’s often possible to prevent a problem.

“Young children need preparation for a change in routine,” she said. “Explain the trip, what’s going to be happening, the process of getting onto the plane. And provide unique alternative activities.”

As a mom who’s gone to church with sketchbooks and baggies of Cheerios, I can attest to the power of distraction. Giving kids choices helps, too. Sometimes, there’s no choice.

“The plane situation is like riding in a car. You have to have a seat belt on,” Neumann said. She’d be nicer than I would be, but she’d be firm.

“I would definitely say, ‘I can see by your actions you don’t want to do this right now. The plane has to take off. And you have to do this now. After the plane takes off, when you can, you’ll get out of your seat,’” Neumann said.

Just imagining that conversation takes me back to travels with infants and toddlers. My husband and I used to request bulkhead seats and hope our kids wouldn’t disturb everybody aboard. Those children are now 23, 20 and 8, but it hasn’t been so long that I’ve forgotten.

It was hard then. With stepped up security, it’s harder for parents now.

Alaska Airlines spokeswoman Amanda Tobin Bielawski said rules for kids are spelled out on the airline’s Web site. Babies under 2 are allowed to be held on a parent’s lap, but children older than that must have a paid-for seat. Infants traveling on a regular fare, with their own seat, must have a car seat aboard.

“Safety is our highest priority,” said Tobin Bielawski. She had no words of wisdom for dealing with unruly toddlers.

Take it from Neumann, tots can be tough on even the most rational parents. “My own kids are 19 and 17 now, but we had our days,” Neumann said. “I can remember lots of challenging times.

“You don’t know what was going on in that family,” she said of the people kicked off by AirTran Airways. “In reality, that probably was just one bad day, and this child had never done anything like that before.”

Maybe. Or maybe it was a scene straight out of … brats on a plane.

Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com.