Seat Kicking: one that worked, but I'm not entirely proud of

I recently chaperoned a field trip for my first grader's class. The bus ride was probably a half hour long, and after a full day walking around the zoo, the kids were understandably restless. Since I had the pleasure of sitting with another chaperon, most of the unruliness did not bother me, but about fifteen minutes before we returned to the school, the kids behind us started pushing their knees against our seat and I could tell that the other chaperon was getting a bit irritated.

I turned to the kids and asked, "Have any of you been on an airplane before?" The kids eyed me, suspiciously, and said, "no." "Well," I said, "on airplanes, there is always a grouchy guy sitting in front of you, and if you push against his seat, he'll turn around and point at you, saying 'don't push against my seat!'" I wagged my finger the way the grouchy airplane guy would when I got to that part of the story, and told the kids, "let's practice now, so when you go an airplane, the guy won't turn around and grouch at you."

In all honesty, I know this was probably not the best thing to tell the kids, but they sure kept their feet and knees off of our seat the rest of the way back to school. I could hear that they were still having a good time playing together, too. When we got back to the school, I told them that they did a great job and were ready for an airplane ride.