That's the real solution, charge more for small children and use the extra charge to reduce prices of the seats nearby. It should be prohibitively expensive to bring a crying child on the plane.
BS, Parents have to fly sometimes and upping the cost will do nothing aside from harming parents by making them pay more. It won't deter people from flying at all. Believe me as a Parent the airlines make it difficult enough to fly, that very few parents do it without a pretty compelling reason.
Even if it did reduce the number of children on board, that's a worse solution than the problem currently is. Children learn by doing, including manners on planes. Remove a generation of children from anything and you'll have a generation that has no idea how to behave during that activity.
I guess I should have wrote infants that are unable to stop crying. I'm fine with children if they can manage to not kick the seats. Upping the cost enough would prevent parents of infants from flying and it would be wonderful.
Even if it did reduce the number of children on board, that's a worse solution than the problem currently is. Children learn by doing, including manners on planes. Remove a generation of children from anything and you'll have a generation that has no idea how to behave during that activity.