Skip your hot tea and coffee when flying with young children - and hope that passengers in adjacent seats do the same.

Every year hundreds of passengers, many of them children, are burned by such beverages spilling on them. The combination of hot drinks, crowding, turbulence, and children is a formula for an accident waiting to happen. Turbulence occurs frequently and children move constantly and suddenly, flailing their arms about and roughhousing, causing drinks to spill. Many airline personnel hope that in flight hot beverage service goes the way of smoking.

The number of injuries from hot beverages can be reduced by seating children away from the aisle - away from flight attendants serving the drinks. And politely inform adjacent passengers about the hazards of hot beverages. Tell them that sudden movements by your child or turbulence can result in their drink spilling on themselves. Most will cooperate.

Other reasons for placing children away from the aisles are to prevent them from being injured by falling objects from the overhead bins, having their protruding arms and legs caught between beverage carts and the seat and, for older children, running in the aisles. Worldwide, more than 10,000 passengers per year, a disproportionate number of them children, are injured, occasionally seriously, by falling objects. Children, because of their smaller size, are more likely to suffer serious injuries. Children running in the aisles fall over feet and other protruding objects, especially when the cabin is dark. With you in the aisle seat, you can better keep the kids out of the aisles.