Question For Disney Parents

[macmahony]

I will be the bad parent, I have, and will. I know what they can handle, and would never force them on tower of terror, rockin roller coaster, mission space, those sorts of rides, but yes, I made them both go on soarin (both crying in line) Both LOVED it, we rode it at least 10 times....at least. Made them both go on big thunder (both loved it), I have even had to take them , crying onto winnie the pooh (which we have ridden a million times, but the younger one decided it was scary...but got off, and begged to do it again, and again and again).
If I know they would not like it, no, then I would not force it,but sometimes they are crying because they are tired, or want to ride another ride first, (so they pretend the ride is scary), I think all parents have to make that call themselves, they know there kids best. So, next time you see a parent dragging a kid on a ride, it might be me, and watch I almost 100% guarntee my kids will love the ride I have just taken them crying on. and then we will do it again, and again, and again, and again......

 

[pezpam]

Force, no. Encourage, yes. It's worked well for us so far and DD now wants to ride every thrill ride out there over and over again.

On our first trip, DD(then 5) had never been on a thrill ride and wasn't at all interested. Frankly, there were so many other things to do that I just went ahead and did the things she would do. I *love* thrill rides and at that time thought we'd never be back to WDW, but the trip was so wonderful I wouldn't change it.

On teh next trip, she was 6 and sort of looking at some of them. At some point, she asked about a ride and we had a talk about how Mickey would never want any of the guests to be hurt and Mommy wouldn't take her on a ride I didn't think was safe, right? I also let her know that she could decide at any time not to ride and that Disney had exits because other people do that, too. She trusts me and Mickey and wound up screwing up her courage and trying Primeval Whirl.

Well, that opened the floodgates! She suddenly wanted every thrill ride, except Dinosaur. At Dinosaur, she saw the sign out on the pillars saying it was a very loud ride and turned right around, asking ot do something else. Fine. On the other rides, each time she tried a new one, she'd be all excited, then as the actual ride got closer, she'd start to act nervous. Knowing my DD as I do, I knew that was her way of just checking in and getting reassurance. I'd encourage her, she'd chant "MickeyMickeyMickey" under her breath if she needed to, and off we'd go. As soon as each one ended, it was "Let's do that again!!!" TOT and RNRR were big favorites.

By now, she'll go on everything, but for her, I think her confidence went way up once she knew that I'd encourage her, but not force her. Knowing that she could back out, she actually tried more things. I think that if I'd actually forced her, it would have been a heck of a long time before she tried again.

However, there's the usual disclaimer that this was my child and you know your child better than any of us do. While some parents put themselves well out in first, I think that most parents understand their child and respect their limits on things they're willing to do. Most parents know when a little encouragement is what their child actually wants and would stop before pushing too hard.

 

[eeyoregon]

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!! Putting on my flame suit....

Our kids trust us and expect us to protect them and fear is such a powerful emotion that to purposely inflict it upon our children is abuse.

I witnessed this 1st hand at Disneyland one time. We were waiting in line for Indiana Jones the Ride and as we are snaking thru the tunnels I can hear a girl screaming, sobbing and yelling. She appeared to be 5-7 yrs old and was begging her mom in hysterics to not go on it. The mom kept screaming at her that they paid good money for this trip and she was going on it and she need to grow up. The poor child was so hystercial that she began to throw up. I had had it with this poor excuse for a mother and screamed at the top of my lungs to knock it off and listen to her child or I would call security. The woman snapped at me to mind my own business and I screamed back that child abuse is everyone's business.

I realize that this was an extreme example but it stuck with me all of these years. There is truly a difference between a whiny child that might not want to try something new and the child that is physically terrified of a particular ride/show/character. When all else fails, do the child swap and everyone is happy.

 

[mermaidlagoon]

Its all your childs perspective if you want a nice trip. Why rush it , youll probably be back sometime in their life. Hey I was scared to death on Casey Jr as a 3 yr old in the 50s! We have been lots now and each child is sooo different, Bring lsmall Pooh or such flashlights , blankies but beware at end of Haunted Mansion when your child gets out from under blanket near the end.... the hitchiking ghost is sitting on them!!!! Is it worth it .???... NOW my 9yr old is still mad at older sister for taking her!!! We could have waited!!!! ( PS at Disneyland last week the teenage goths in Ca for the HM Halloween reopening were more scary than any witch, so my dd is scared easy).

You are going for good memories.... at 9 they finally want to try SM AND TM because friends say it is fun!! Just have fun!
pss Wow Casey Jr sure is small I must have been one wuss!!!

 

[badblackpug]

Ok...I am the OP here and I will answer. Yep have done it and will do it. Now let me qualify that. I am not talking about a hysterical terrified child...but a scared, apprehensive child. To be exact:

Our 1st trip to WDW my oldest was 6. Now she rode SM, BTMRR, and Splash Mountain without hesitation, but was scared by HM (ghost sounds and all that) I explained to her that it was really a very funny ride inside, and that all that noise was make believe. Well...after she rode it, she loved it. It became one of her all time favorites and we must have ridden it 10 times.

I think it is important to help children face their fears.

 

[emh1129]

Absolutely not.

This quote from eeyoregon says it well: "Our kids trust us and expect us to protect them and fear is such a powerful emotion that to purposely inflict it upon our children is abuse."

If my child was upset (crying, etc.) about not wanting to go on a ride, I'd never force them to go on it. Doesn't make sense at all to me. If a little gentle encouragement works, fine. Beyond that, no.. we'd just find something else to ride.

 

[WantToGoNow]

I'm a bad mom. I tried to make my ds (3.5 at the time) ride Splash Mountain. I absolutely knew that he would love it once it started. It is the ONLY ride my dd2 wants to ride -- and she's 1.5" too short.

Anyway, all through line he whined. We tried talking to him, begging, even bribing. When we actually got in the boat, he started crying. The CM asked if everything was ok. I told him it would be once the boat started moving. The CM asked my son if he wanted to ride and he said no. We had to get out of the boat and exit.

Later that day, he wanted to ride it. I wasn't about to have a repeat of the above, so he didn't get to ride it. He's been talking about it for 2 years now and said he will ride it this time. We have 23 days to go -- we'll see.

 

[MomofKatie]

Oh, boy- this is a hard topic for me. Reading all the responses has been interesting.

I was a scared kid, and I don't remember my mom and dad forcing me to ride anything. My older brother tricked me onto HM when I was 7, and I still bear resentment for him over it!! Now, I love all the thrill rides, and I get just a little freaked out during HM (I still hate the Stretch Room).

HOWEVER- now I am the mom, and my DD is the one who is apprehensive. She is really excited about riding things when we are in the planning process of our trips. When she actually gets to WDW and sees the ride, however, she gets extremely wary and most of the time decides, "No way" for just about every thrill ride. Strangely enough, she is totally fearless about scary atmospheric rides like HM and Dinosaur. I guess she's just not a speed freak.

I KNOW she'd actually have a good time on these rides, if she worked through her pre-ride jitters (she has been on some BIG rollercoasters at Carowinds- if she liked them, BTMRR or SM should be a piece of cake). But I just can't seem to make myself cajole and coax her onto these "scary rides".

Maybe I'll be more forceful in January- it will be a Mom and Daughter only trip (just the 2 of us), so no Child Swap for us. I REALLY don't want to miss EE, BTMRR, and ToT- I am willing to sacrifice RnRC, though. I don't want to be selfish, but I want to get to go on some of my favorites, too . Does that make me a bad Mom? I guess we'll see how she- and I- do when we get there.

 

[marciemi]

I agree with all the folks who have said you have to know your kids. We do a lot of amusement parks (when my DS did a report on rollercoasters in 4th grade, he figured out that during the past 2 years he'd been on something like 65 different rollercoasters in 17 different parks). Our rule has always been that you have to try something once to see if you like it. This was particularly because of my youngest who on EVERY ride would be like "NO, NO" then "AGAIN, AGAIN". Once we knew a kid didn't like a particular type of ride (my middle son hates wooden rollercoasters because they're too "bumpy" and give him a headache), we wouldn't ask him to try a different one that we knew would have the same feel.

However, Disney's a whole different ball game. A kid who has no problem going on a rollercoaster that goes upside down 7 times can still be terrified by Haunted Mansion. In general, if a kid really didn't want to do something, we wouldn't make them. But if it was a ride like HM (vs Tower of Terror!), we'd emphasize that it was all pretend and tell them they could sit with Mom (or Dad or whoever they preferred) and cuddle up with us and NOT WATCH. Youngest DS rode HM when he was 3 with his hat over his face singing while curled into my shoulder. Yet he rode TOT 5 times and loved it - guess the thrill ride thing was fine, but ghosts were not.

The hard part is doing it with someone else's kid. We took my son's friend (they were both 10) to a water park. This kid loved all water rides, slides, etc., and had no fear of darkness or getting splashed. Well, the park had a "water rollercoaster", which really was like a double tube ride except you got pushed up the hill at the beginning. I knew he'd love it, but he heard the word "rollercoaster" and freaked out. Totally refused to go. Meanwhile he's doing the body slides that go in complete darkness in and out of the building while we're watching 2 and 3 year olds go on the "rollercoaster".

Finally had to give in and bribe him. Told him I'd buy him a stuffed dolphin he really wanted if he went on it. We went first thing the next morning and were the only ones in line. They let him get in and out (and in and out) and look over the front edge and promised they wouldn't send him until he said okay. FINALLY, he sat down and said (very quietly) "okay, I'll try it". Hit the bottom and ran back towards the steps yelling back to my son (who'd ridden it like 10 times the previous day) "Let's go again!" It was just frustrating because I knew he'd love it - I would never try to force him on a rollercoaster but this wasn't one!

Sorry to go on so long and glad we're beyond this point with any of our kids. Now I need a way to force/bribe them to go on Dumbo on our trip next summer!

 

[HooKooDooKu]

Every situation is different, and you just have to reliy on your instincts to determine what you do and don't do.

For an example, we had our 3yo in the bone yard at AK. I could tell he was overly apprehensive about going down this fairly long slide. I picked him up and threw him down the slide [overly dramatic way of saying I forced him down]. After that, he did the slide on his own over and over and over for the next 20 minutes.

Then we went to the top of a different slide. DS was not suprizingly overly apprehensive about this new slide too. However, I could read his level of apprehension (this slide was different because the whole thing was in the dark) and decided that now was NOT the appropriate time to force him down this other slide.

After trying the 'dark slide', we went over to another slide on the same level. This one too was dark, but you could at least see light at the end of it (it was a strait slide with one partial turn at the bottom). On that slide, I was able to encourage DS to go down it after I went first.

So in one night, I did all three - Forced, Encouraged, and Skipped.

 

[Luv'sTink]

I'm a bad parent too! I forced my son to ride on Peter Pan! He is afraid of almost all rides, even it's a small world until he is on it. Actually I made him go on almost all the kiddie ones at DL, unless he absolutley refused. I would not pull him on kicking and screaming. He is 9.