Child Afraid of Characters Experience

[bushdianee]

My DN5 is terrified of characters, mascots etc. Princesses are the only exception. When we were at WDW 2 years ago she would tolerate them by the end of the trip but recently it has been screaming,shaking and running away whenever she even spots a character in the distance at school carnivals, ballgames, etc. She had a major break through yesterday at our local Relay for Life. My family has a food stand there to raise money. This year we were sharing a tent with a local fast food place. The guy running that stand had the restaurant's mascot costume (one of those blow up types) that he had some tween/teen age kids wear. I was with DN on the track when we spotted "Runza Guy" in the distance. She grabbed my hand and was scared so we waited until he was gone before going back to our stand. A few minutes later The character came back to the stand to switch people and DN went as far away at the stand as she could and was crying. I talked her into going closer and watch the kid get out of the costume which she did. Then I had her touch the costume while it was deflated. The guy working the stand was watching us and asked her if she wanted to get in the costume. To my surprise she did and he partially inflated it. She loved it! Then another DN got in and the costume was fully inflated. DN5 was hugging it and was so proud of herself. Hopefully this will continue now that she has seen for herself that they actually are just people in costumes even though we had repeatedly told her that. She has actually been seeing a therapist about her fear and can't wait to tell him and show him the pictures.

 

[AshleeH]

My daughter hated the characters at 18 months, really disliked them on our Disney Cruise this month (she's 2 now), but was starting to warm up to them a little by the end (she loved the face characters), since we didn't push it.

This might just be a fear that she always has that doesn't make sense to anyone but her. It sounds like she had a breakthrough though. I would suggest showing her videos of characters on YouTube before your trip and talking it through. Reassuring her that she doesn't have to meet/interact with any of them if she doesn't choose to, but if she does happen to see one in the distance, there is nothing to fear - they are there to love children and they would be very sad to know they make her sad.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Our 8 year old is still afraid of characters, lol. She pretty much cried our whole 'Ohana breakfast, especially when Stitch came to the table.

I have an irrational fear of clowns though, so I understand. We all have our quirks.

 

[katyjeka]

3 of our 4 girls have loved them from the beginning. Our 4th forget it. Nine years later and she still wants nothing to do with them. I don't believe we'll ever figure our girls out!!!!!

 

[quakechicago]

My kiddo has mild SPD and is afraid of some characters. What helped her from our first trip (she was 2) is my listening to her fears, showing her YouTube videos, and her knowing that everyone is an actor dressed up -- including the princesses. Also, most of all she knows that the masked characters cannot talk (so we don't see talking Mickey). Even knowing this when she is there, magic happens and she's totally into it as if it's real.

One of her favorite things to do is have our art of animation book signed and to dress for each character. So she'll ask to put in Tinkerbell barrettes for Pan, Hook (who she's scared of still at 4), and Wendy. Then she will use my phone to play music. Stitch makes her nervous because he's unpredictable (but he's so funny) so at O'hana she plays Elvis and they dance. Tigger gets the Tigger song played. Baloo gets The Bear Necessities. She will play a clock noise and Pirate song for Hook and Smee. The characters seem to enjoy the song interaction and being sort of in control of that seems to work best for kiddo. If there's someone she's very afraid of (Goofy and Baloo are HUGE!) she will ask me to jump in the picture between them and I do.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

I was afraid of character into adulthood. It goes hand in hand with my fear of clowns. If I can't see your face I don't know what you're really thinking and I don't like that! I have since gotten over my fear due to an accidental character breakfast at Garden Grove at the Swan and a great Donald Duck.

 

[cagirl4life]

I was terrified as a kid of the characters. It comes from an incident at Chuck E Cheese and a missing head. Then right after that a Pluto snuck up on me and "licked" me from behind. I lost all trust right there.

My parents always explained how they were people dressed up pretending and that helped me not be so scared. There is video of me as a kid at Disneyland talking about how its not real and its just a person. That helped me a lot. I still wouldn't do character meets but I could walk by them ok. Later in like 3rd grade I went with a friend and she loved getting character autographs so I would join her and I had no more fear.

 

[scurvyfreedman]

My 5 1/2 yo froze up with the princess, but loved the giant head characters. I think the difference was she thought the princesses were real and knew the head characters were in costumes. She couldn't wait to meet Merida, then we we walked up to meet her, my daughter had a panic face. It was the same with nearly every princess, except maybe Ariel in her grotto. With the head characters, big smiles the whole time. My 2 1/2 yo loved everyone. We'll be back when they are 8 1/2 and 5 1/2 so we'll see if things have changed.

 

[SamSam]

We had our 2 1/2 year old twin grandsons watch utube video's of kids interacting with characters and also ride videos (over and over again). Whether they would have been afraid without doing this, I don't know, but they loved all characters and wanted to try most rides.

 

[leahgoogle]

Our 5-year old daughter is terrified of anything in costume!! We tried to prep her with youtube (which is a great idea), but it didn't really work. We went to Disney World last October (she was 4 years old) and she tolerated the princesses by the end of our trip, but never warmed up to any characters in full costume. She is literally scared to death of them and we have to hold her until the character is far away. It made character dining interesting...lol. Hopefully by our next trip she will be better, although our 8-year old is scared of some of the characters, as well. I think it is pretty common.

 

[Ladygoldenhair]

Rover the years I shared and read so many threads on forums, or shared with other parents our children's really putting a damper on trips because of character fear, or attraction fear. It was not normal, but not unusual. Some kids just are apprehensive or anxious in new circumstances.

It passes as they get older. I remember my dh meltdown when dd refused and screamed about the Hall of Presidents, the one thing dh wanted to do. The next trip she hadn't even remembered and denied being a pain that trip.