Squishy toys are all the rage among Gen Alpha right now. Squishmallows are the current king of the stuffed animal game. Gel-filled Goo Jit Zu figures took over the action-figure front last year. My kids were really into those, but I banned them after my son poked a hole in one and the goopy gel got everywhere. This year’s new “it” squishy toys come from NeeDoh. They’re also filled with gel, but come in different shapes and sizes, and are designed for sensory play.
While kids may love these types of toys, the US government does not approve them all for traveling. Gel or liquid-filled toys like NeeDoh are causing issues at airport security because they fall under the same 3.4-ounce liquid rule for cosmetics. Kids are getting them confiscated by TSA. From Yahoo! Life:
Celine Trang’s 9-year-old daughter, Cassie, packed her own “I’m bored on the plane bag” — mostly squishies — for their trip to Puerto Rico in June. The sensory toys are popular with kids in part because they keep hands busy and can take the edge off boredom or anxiety during travel.
Cassie was going to see her best friend, so she brought her new large butter squishy, which was rare and hard to find. Trang made sure all liquids in both their carry-ons were under 3.4 oz., as she always did. So when they went through the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) screening at Charleston International Airport, she was confused when Cassie’s bag was pulled aside.
“The TSA agent told us the large butter squishy couldn’t come on the plane because the contents inside are considered a liquid,” Trang tells Yahoo. “She explained that people sometimes empty squishies and replace the contents with other substances.”
Trang understood the rule, but in that moment, she was thinking, “We have 20 minutes to board, and this is a child’s toy.” Meanwhile, Cassie “was on the verge of tears,” having “her heart set on showing that squishy to her best friend.”
Flying with kids can already be stressful. An unexpected dilemma over a favorite toy only adds to it.
As the clock ticked down, Trang gave her daughter two choices: surrender the squishy to the agent or go to guest services to ship it home. Cassie chose the latter, and a TSA agent and security guard escorted them outside the checkpoint, where they shoved it in a box and mailed it home.
They made the flight, but Trang says, “I had no idea beforehand that squishies could be flagged. There should be more awareness before families get to the airport. Parents shouldn’t have to find out at the checkpoint with a crying child and a boarding clock ticking.”
And, yes, this is happening as Gen Alpha is fully immersed in a squishy era, while TSA classifies the gel- and liquid-filled sensory toys under the same 3.4-oz. limit used for lotions and shampoos. TikTok is filled with videos of kids crying, faced with the same dilemma as Cassie.
Author E.K. McCoy was traveling with about $250 worth of the holy grail of squishies — NeeDoh — in her backpack in June when TSA stopped her at Florida’s Melbourne Orlando International Airport. She and her sisters have six kids, ages 8 to 13, who had been looking for the viral toys, and McCoy was excited to score enough so that every child would get one ahead of their get-together. Then, her backpack got flagged.
“They said that because they can’t hold their shape, they are a ‘threat,'” McCoy tells Yahoo. “Yes, that was their exact wording.”
McCoy says her options were to go back and check her bag or to surrender the NeeDohs to TSA. She had the time, so she chose option one — at an additional cost of $75. She later made a PSA TikTok for other parents “because I have an 11-year-old and I know how heartbroken she’d be if she lost her viral toy that we had been searching months to find and had to pay a ridiculous amount of money for.”
In August, TSA issued new guidance for gel-filled toys. If a toy appears to contain 3.4 ounces or less of gel or liquid, it can go in a carry-on as long as it follows the 3-1-1 rule. It must fit in one clear, quart-size resealable bag along with your other liquids, gels and aerosols. Larger gel-filled toys should be placed in checked luggage.
There’s an important addendum, however — and one that’s enough for me to say: Check it. “The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint,” TSA states.
The agency claims it doesn’t want to see any teary tots either.
“It’s not NeeDoh for us to see any kid cry,” the agency said in a cheeky Facebook post. “If your child’s toys are filled with more than 3.4 oz. of gel, put them in a checked bag.”
Man, I wish I’d known earlier that I could have taken care of my Goo Jit Zu problem by simply sending them all through airport security! While I understand why TSA classifies them as liquids, it’s silly to confiscate children’s toys. If there’s any concern, why not put them through an x-ray machine or swab them for residue? I traveled dozens of times when I was pumping, and TSA agents used to do that whenever I’d bring breast milk through security. The rules are frustrating, though. They once dumped three bottles out without testing them. Another time, agents threw out clay ice packs that I specifically bought because I thought clay would get around the liquid rule.
My younger son used to take a small stuffed animal with him on airplanes. On one occasion, he cried when security made him part with it to go through the x-ray belt. An agent saw his reaction and immediately engaged with him to put him at ease. I feel for the parents who had to deal with their kids’ toys being seized.
Photos credit: Dagmara Dombrovska, Kate Trysh, Liliana Drew on Pexels, Duskfall Crew on Unsplash
I really hate how kids’ toys are still placed under general suspicion. And how there’s no real info to be had before things like confiscating or the tossing of toys have to happen.
It’s not like 3D CT scanners can’t differentiate between dangerous and harmless chemicals.
Many EU airports have relaxed the 100 ml rule, and others, equipped with high-end scanners, have done away with it completely.
I hate this for the kids. Hated even more when my kids spent a year without their dad. But I raged at the cause, the terrorists. Blaming the TSA trying to keep us safe from every possibility is pointless.
This is all security theater and not keeping us safe in any meaningful way. One failed bombing attempt twenty years ago and we are still going through this CYA nonsense.
Old enough to remember when hijackings were fairly common.
I was flying out of DFW the day after the shoe incident, and I don’t know if I’d heard very much about it, other than it was thwarted and in the EU. I got to the airport and it was a total cluster, TSA rules had changed literally over night. I didn’t have much makeup, but they threw it away and made me take my platform flip flops off and run them through the scanner. A friend I was meeting up with (bachelorette weekend) had to toss $100+ in makeup and perfume.
At the time, I thought surely they could only do this for a little while, especially the shoe removing rule. Lo and behold, 20 years on, it’s still a thing. And it is mostly theater, a few years ago a journalist investigated with a security guy who was contemptuous of how much was theater. They didn’t scan your tickets, just looked at them (they printed dummy ones for article and got through), and there’s a ton of gaps in the bag screening. Since then they for real scan tickets and have added whatever the weird and invasive body scan is. The point of the article was that the Israelis had the most secure airport facilities at the time, and they accomplished it by having trained interrogators and watching everyone closely.
I mean, there’s all this stuff and I was at the Boston Logan airport a few years ago around the holidays when some guy ran through the exit doors into the terminal. Its mostly theater.
The little kids of Gen Alpha and… my mother, lol. She just bought herself one of the butter squishies. I’ll inform her of the travel restrictions.