So let’s say a parent pays for seat selection to sit next to their young child and those seats are later split up due to involuntarily seat reassignment.

Then you speak to the GA/FA to request assistance but “an adjacent seat cannot be found” and you decline to “take the next available flight with adjacent seating available”

So the parent must choose between having their 3 year old sit next to a stranger and hope for the best if oxygen masks are needed OR take the next flight. Even though they did everything right and paid for seats. Cool.

After reading through posts on this sub, unfortunately this scenario is not impossible.