During a flight, I had to shield my son's eyes from a nude sex scene on-screen. The airline told me next time I should just change seats.

• I flew with my son for his national speech competition and was ready to watch some shows in flight.
• In the row in front of us, I saw someone watching an explicit sex scene on the airplane screen.

In April, my 15-year-old son was competing in a national speech competition, and we were both ready to unwind as our flight took off. We had our snacks and books, and because our seats had screens, I knew we could laugh at our favorite shows. I thought I was ready.

What I was not ready for was having to shield my son's eyes from an explicit nude sex scene.

It happened after we settled in for our flight. I started looking through the options for in-flight entertainment. As I looked at my screen, I could see the one in the row in front of me. I saw a nude sex scene in clear view. To be clear, this was not a passenger's personal device. This scene was playing on the seat back, with the airline providing the entertainment.

I was shocked. That shock turned to horror as I realized the scene was in clear view of my son sitting right next to me.

I positioned myself to cover the opening between the seats, obscuring his view. Once the sex scene ended, I went to the flight attendants to ask for help. They offered to move our seats. Even then, they said, someone else could play that same content. In essence, there was nothing they could do.

I contacted the airline

When I emailed the airline's executive office, I pointed out that at least one study found a correlation between adolescent exposure to sexually explicit content and risky sexual behavior in emerging adults.

"It is important not to discount the inner turmoil this sensation can lead a kid to experience," Dr. Zishan Khan, a child, adolescent, and adult psychiatrist, said. "The autonomic sexual arousal that these images cause can be extremely confusing and scary for a child that is unprepared to properly understand what they are observing.

"The exposure can actually be traumatizing and lead to issues with their social and interpersonal development."

Despite this, the response I received from the airline's seat-back-entertainment team was the same as on board — if it happens again, change seats. [Editor's note: Insider viewed the airline's response email.] This response does nothing to address the content being available in the first place.

What parents can do if it happens to them

Whether on a plane or in another context, you need to have a plan in place.

"If you notice they are struggling to understand and accept the images they've seen, then talk to them about it," Khan said. "It helps to remain general and to lead with open-ended questions, such as, 'How are you feeling?' or, 'What do you think about what you just saw?'"

Parents can take activities on board for kids. From coloring books and toys for younger children to electronics and books for teens, diverting their attention from the screens around them can help.

But airlines also have a responsibility to all customers, including the youngest and most vulnerable.

"Airlines should be much more selective with what options people in such settings are offered in terms of entertainment while they are flying," Khan said. "Explicit and controversial topics should be avoided or have restricted access, and even then, care should be taken that others aren't able to easily visualize what someone else is watching."

US airlines have the choice to edit their TV shows and movies so they were appropriate for general audiences. In such close quarters, where screens are clearly visible to people in the surrounding area, this would be a responsible and ethical option and one they should reconsider.

LaKeisha Fleming is a writer, author, and motivational speaker who specializes in writing about mental health, miscarriage, and parenting issues.