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Not all travel advice published on the web is good advice. And with year-end pressure from editors to come up with “best-of/worst-of” year-end lists, there are bound to be some bad ideas coming down the pike.

Take James Wysong’s “25 Tips for a Better Flight,” for example. Mostly okay, but the tips related to dealing with other people’s rowdy children made me cringe. In particular:

Bring dollar bills, and if the kid behind you starts kicking your seat, bribe him with money to stop. Tell him that if he can keep from kicking your seat for the remainder of the flight, he’ll get $5. Works like a charm.

What the hell kind of message does this send to these kids, or their parents?? That bad behavior isn’t punished, it’s rewarded. In fact, it’s incentivized. Hey kids, kick harder, they’re not paying you yet!

Take it to the next level: Why stop with kids? Why not start bribing adults to move their seat forward if they’re reclining?

Or turn it around: If this keeps up, passengers can make a mint by threatening to recline, talk, belch, fart, get drunk, get amorous, or otherwise be unpleasant flying companions. Maybe start printing up cards with a menu of options for your flying compatriots:

- For the person behind you, you can charge $20 for not reclining ($30 if you see they have a laptop.)
- For the person adjacent to you, $40 buys them the armrest.
- Want quiet? $30. Not willing to pay? Well, then: Check out these photos of my nephew!

No thanks. I’m not going to endorse that road to escalation.

If the kid behind you is kicking your seat, talk to the kid first and ask him/her to stop. If that fails, try the parents. If you can’t charm the family, threaten to raise the issue with a flight attendant. Then carry out the threat. Ask that the offenders be moved, or that you be given an equivalent or better seat. If there are no alternative seats, ask for the purser and discuss the options, including a threat of having the family met by security upon arrival. But don’t reward bad behavior.