As crew I come across this situation many times,however(as an example) 50% of the time a family of 4-2 adults, 2 children will of been allocated 2 lots of 2 seats(wether being by the online booking system or due to the time that they have checked in at the airport on a full flight)on boarding the two parents will insist that they havebeen seperated from their "3 and 6 year old children"!As a parent myself of course I would ask if anything could be done for my family to sit together -however I would not leave my 2 youngsters sat on there own next to a stranger-I would sit myself next to one child and my husband next to the other!-Common sense?Caring parent?Call it what you want but unfortunatly it does not happen most of the time.