Fear of villians?...

[bartleby1]

Last year when we went to WDW, my 3 1/2 year old DD was HORRIBLY afraid of the villians. She wouldn't watch the show in front of the castle and was terrified when the stopped in front of us during the parade.

I would like to tell her that the villians aren't real, to ease her fears, however, I'm afraid of ruining the magic of the other characters such as the princesses and mickey. She still believes that the princesses are the "real" princesses and mickey and minnie are the "real" mickey and minnies.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to ease her fears without ruining the magic? She will be 4 1/2 on our next trip and apparently is still afraid of some of the characters. She told me the other day that we could give her beauty and the beast tape to another child who was braver than her . I guess the beast scares her .

 

[stacy6552]

go buy the house of mouse cillians dvd. they get teased and razzed alot, so you can refer to it if you run into problems.

give dad a hero badge and have him scoop her up if theres an issue. if a villian comes near and he goes into hero mode, they will probably cower and play along.

 

[kimwim8]

The last time we were there my daughter didn't want to go near Captain Hook. I told her to go tell him "you shouldn't be so mean". She was excited that she could tell him that! So she did & he covered his face in shame. That made her feel better.

 

[BevS97]

it's quite a tricky question - if you tell her the villians aren't real, then she's going to work out that Mickey isn't real either. If you think about it, she is right to be scared of them they are some scary characters.

The problem is that even if you tell her they aren't real, it may not help. My dd knows that the characters are just pretend (she worked it out, I never told her) but she still won't go near a villan, and you can forget the Haunted House - she won't even walk past the place. It doesn't matter that they are pretend, they still worry her. We just avoid them and for the most part that works ok. At the parade we concentrate on the good guys and if a villan stops near us, then she is likely to turn her head away from the parade, and while she did watch the castle show but she wasn't overly keen on it, and didn't want to go back and watch it again. Saying that, there are TONS of things to do at disney, and we manage to have a great time and avoid the villans - it's never ruined out vacatoin

 

[MommyBoo!]

Kim's idea is a good one. Two years ago my then six year old dd went up to the villians and told them to be nice to the hero/princess of the movie. She also told the princesses how much she enjoyed their movies. And she knew they were not the real characters. It was really cute.

 

[bartleby1]

You guys all have some really good suggestions! I'm adding them all to my disney info list . I hope these work! We will still try to avoid the villians as much as possible, but if I could get her not to panic if we happen to see some it would definitely be a plus!

Thanks for all of the tips!

 

[Jordan's MOM]

I took my 6 yr old niece to see Peter Pan and she was quite scared of captian Hook. A joint family trip is hopefully in the future and she knows that I am the offical WDW expert . She explained it to me this way. I know that the real princess and Mickey and Minnie live at WDW but I know they would never let a mean person like captian hook live there so he must just be a person dressed up like him. i assured her she was correct and all was taken care of. The villians are pretty easy to avoid so that might be the best thing to do.



Jordan's mom

 

[JohnsPrincess]

My little sister used to be afraid of them too. We'd tell her stuff like since they were visiting Mickey's "house" they had to be on their best behavior and couldn't do anything bad, etc.

 

[marcyinPA]

We don't have that problem, as my 5 y/o ds LOVES the villians and particularly Jafar. He wouldn't rest until we found him on our last trip! LOL

My friend's daughter tends to wig out on certain characters for some reason. She'll be 5 in August. We go out for dinner locally quite a bit with them to a restaurant that has a "kids night" and characters in costume. Spiderman was a bit scary one night, so her mom told her it was a "Daddy in a costume". This worked for her, and she wasn't afraid anymore.

I know you don't want to spoil the "magic" but being honest on this one might make her more comfortable. You don't need to blow it on the other characters...she will figure it out in time. If she asks, you can always turn it around and ask her what SHE thinks!

Good luck!

 

[tink2]

DD was 4 1/2 on our last trip and was terrified of the villians- hiding every time she saw them! To prepare her a little better- and to keep her from crying or hiding during parades- I've told her that Mickey lets the villians like Hook live in WDW but they can't hurt you. If they tried to hurt you- Mickey would kick them out! I told her that they may 'play' with you and be silly, but they can't hurt you. I said this b/c my niece, then 4, met Hook and he put his hook to her neck and held her arms. Luckily she is a brave kid and thought it was funny, my dd would freak out!!!! if this happened to her!

 

[stacilee]

This is a tough predicament!
Our youngest child surprised us the first time we went to WDW by being PETRIFIED of ALL the characters!
This was a child that watched all the movies and sing along tapes and knew each character's name and couldn't wait to meet them. The thing she hated the most about the characters' costumes were the GLOVES for some reason. We live in the south so all I can think of is that she had never really seen anyone with their hands covered like that. It just freaked her out.


What isn't frigtening on a 27 inch television screen is infinitely more imposing in real life!

I wouldn't worry about "spoiling the magic". We absolutely had to tell her that all the costumed characters were "Nice college girls, PRETENDING to be the characters" and that they did this as " a job to make money for college and car insurance". Even though she was really little like 3 1/2 or 4 she "got it" because she has a much older brother and these words were familiar to her vocabulary. Somehow it made all the difference to her to imagine that they were all really nice pretty girls in there.

We told her that it was "her job" to "PRETEND TOO" because these "girls" work really hard at being the characters and we wouldn't want to hurt their feelings by crying and screaming at them.

If we went to a character meal we just put her in an inside chair so as to have some space between her and them. I even told a few of them that she was afraid of their "outfits" and each and every one of them respected her feelings and kept their distance.


She is 6 now and fine about it all. She is able to immerse herself in the whole make believe package and although I know that SHE knows they aren't "real" she lets herself believe when we are there and I don't think telling her the truth in any way diminished the magic factor for her.

Kids are funny!