'surely not' leads to an interesting point,
Is it legal to have children in exit rows? From what I remember of the US domestic flights I've been on, exit rows have to be occupied by people over 15. Is there a ruling in Europe? Obviously, it's undesirable, to say the least, to have the exit rows filled with, say, one adult and two young children, but what on earth can you do if the alternative means splitting family groups? Especially if you then end up with a child having to sit next to strange adult?
Are there SOPs to cover this, or am I cynical when I feel that is the sort of thing left to CC to sort out so that if anything goes wrong, the airline isn't to blame, but the crew are?