HELP! my child is terrified

[myshellgott]

We are going to disney world in january ans i dont know what to do about my 4.5 year old. He is terrified of the costumed characters. and i mean TERRIFIED. I have 4 children so i can say with confidence that this is not the normal fear and/or apprehension thatg many children experience. If there is a character at a birthday party, we have to leave b/c he is shaking so badly. what do i do? any recommendations?
michelle

 

[Mouse House Mama]

He's old enough to tell you what exactly it is that bothers him about the characters. Have you tried asking him about it when it's just the two of you? Maybe he has a fear of something that really isn't the character itself. Keep us posted. It's heartbreaking when your kids are upset and you can't fix it.

 

[Hannathy]

The characters in the park can be avoided pretty easily. When we were there the characters always had a line waiting so if you just walked around the crowd you could only see them if you tried. I would explain that you will avoid them as much as humanly possible and will not make him go near them but you may see them from a distance and there is nothing you can do about that. Of course that means no character meals and no having him sit on the curb at parades in case they wander over. That's the best you can do. I would explain the above strategy and then just drop it, go and have fun.

 

[all4fun]

Dr.Sears site has an article entitled 7 Ways to help your child handle fear which might help a bit. You can do a search on childhood fears or children and fear and find other info as well. Sorry I don't have any advice for you but I hope it's a short phase!

Also, about avoiding the characters...you can go to Allearsnet.com and there's a list of where all the characters typically hang out in the theme parks section.

Here's the Character Meet & Greet page

hth.

 

[jenr812]

I see that this is your first post - welcome to the DIS I wish I had some advice... My DD's friend was TERRIFIED of costumed characters the way you describe until she was around 11! I am not sure how she finally got over it. I hope you are able to calm your child and avoid the characters as much as possible *hug*

 

[WantToGoNow]

You might just be surprised at WDW. My ds5 is still afraid of any characters at our local amusement park (Dora, Blue, Spongebob, Scooby Doo, etc.) and flees under the table at Chuck E Cheese when Chuck E comes out. When we went to WDW when he was 3.5, I was prepared to avoid all characters, just as you are. He LOVED the Disney characters right from the start. We had breakfast the first morning at the Crystal Palace and he went straight to them. I don't know what the difference was -- he's looking forward to seeing them again in 2.5 weeks. By the way, we were at Chuck E Cheese on Friday and when Chuck E came out, under the table he went.

 

[MSSANDRA]

Does he know that they are just people in a suit?? Might be the time to kill the magic in order to save the trip.

 

[NotUrsula]

Some kids don't get over this, it is best not to push it. DS has outgrown the true fear, but he still hates "big-head" characters--he will walk 50 yds. out of his way to avoid the possibility that they might try to interact with him, and if they do, his first instinct is to strike out. (He once forked MM in a restaurant; stabbed him in the hand at age 2.) Kids like this should be told that it is just a grownup in a suit, and then you should go out and rent a suit, and let him play with it to understand that a costume cannot hurt you. (Sometimes they don't understand that the person inside is in control of the "animal" -- they think that the person has been eaten. They need to see the suit limp and empty first to prevent this.)

In park terms ... no character meals. If the rest of the family wants to go to one, have him go to one of the kids' clubs instead. It's usually about the same price, and his fear won't ruin the dinner for everyone else. (He WON'T feel left out; to a character-fearing kid that's like being left out of being boiled in oil.) The upside is, no standing in autograph lines, either. You also won't have character photos with him, but who wants a photo of an angry, terrified child?

 

[ajcolorado]

My son is now 20 and as well-adjusted as possible given that he had me for a mom. He was a cautious little guy but he could handle the audio-animatronics like Pirates or Dinosaurs if we told them that they were "Action figures" and "had batteries". He would ask, "Are they plastic?" and we would assure him that they were. On the other hand, he completely freaked out over Placido Flamingo on Sesame Street - would cover his ears, close his eyes, and yell, "The Bad Bird! The Bad Bird!"

It may help if you tell him, "I know that you don't like it when people wear the giant costumes and we will not make you go near them. We will not let them come near you." If he knows you are looking out for him, it should help.

My youngest child is now nine but she was an intense little person who would ssometimes melt-down in new situations. She could usually handle things well if you just gave her some advance information so, prior to our first WDW ttrip, we bought "Disney's Sing-Along Songs Disneyland Fun" and watched it several times, and told her that these were things we would get to do on our trip to Disney World. You can buy a used VHS copy for next to nothing on eBay or amazon. It is also out in DVD. It really helped her. I should warn you that they have the "Grim Grinning Ghosts" song from the Haunted Mansion. We said, "Isn't Donald Duck silly? Does he really think we'll think he is a ghost?" and she was fine with that.

 

[ajcolorado]

On the bright side...think of all the money you are saving on character meals.

 

[mad hatter fan]

Is this your first trip to WDW? I would second getting the Disneyland Fun video to try. You never know, maybe slowly introducing the Disney costumed characters in a "safe" way like on TV may help a little.

 

[mad hatter fan]

Oh, and welcome to the Dis!

 

[#1 Pocahontas]

Is this your first trip to WDW? I would second getting the Disneyland Fun video to try. You never know, maybe slowly introducing the Disney costumed characters in a "safe" way like on TV may help a little.

That is exactly what we did for our daughter. She was terrified of characters. She would cry and run from them. Before we went I had her watch this with me many times. We would dance and sing to it. She loved that video. It took about 5 times of me walking up to a character with her for her to get comfortable. By the second day of our trip she was marching herself right up to them and hugging and kissing them. We walked past Jafar and SHE pulled my arm to go meet him. Believe it or not, Captain Hook was her favorite by the end of the trip!

 

[theresak]

Why push it? You can have a blast at Disney without interacting with characters. It would be more fun if you could, sure - but why terrify the kid? You could let him see them from afar and decide if he wants to get closer, but if not go do something else. Maybe if he's not pressured he may be more willing to give it a shot.

Good luck, and just try to relax - it's Disney!!

 

[lisadisney2003]

My DD has been 4 times now and on trips 2 (1 year) & 3 (1.5 years) she was scared to death of the characters in full costume. She was even scared of the princesses who looked normal except for the fancy clothes. The only thing we did different between visits 3 & 4 (2.5 years) was watch a few of the Disney videos and more importantly read a ton of the Disney books. Additionally, we talked about who we were going to see and that they were he friends. When we arrived, we bought her an autograph book and when we saw a character, she was so excited to get in line for the autograph. When it came her time, she was still hesitant and would not touch the character but, it was so much better. The one exception would be characters we had never read about. Those she was still scared. Oh yea, and one really bad encounter at the 1900 Park Fare character meal w/ Cinderella and friends. We had seen the movie and read the book like one million times but, she totally flipped out when the mice came out because the were of course human size mice and she was expecting little mice. She jumped out of her chair screaming hysterically with everyone in the restaurant staring at us. But as soon as they left the room, she was fine. Best wishes with your little one.

 

[cour10ee]

Hi, I just had to reply to your problem seeing as we had exactly the same issue on our trip last year when my daughter was a similar age. She was extremely afraid of any Big Head characters at home -- I really thought this might ruin our trip. It turned out OK. Here's what we did (most already mentioned by other posters but I wanted to assure you that this worked for someone! )

1. We watched the Disneyland Fun video as well as the other sing-a-long songs ones that feature the live action characters with kids in the parks. Beach Party and Campout are the others and she still loves them. We talked about how WDW was going to be a lot like this in real life.

2. We spilled the beans on them being people in costumes. Kinda left it ambiguous -- like Santa, Mickey, etc can't be everywhere at once. The characters need helpers to be able to play with all the children all over Disneyworld. We told her that the princesses (and anyone whose face you can see,) however, are the real thing! We let her know that this is a "grown up secret" and she shouldn't tell the other kids around who might be disappointed. She was OK with this.

3. We let her know that in the end, if she still didn't want to go near them, it was fine. We told her the characters understand if some kids are shy around them. We even went so far as to send her an "invitation" to WDW from Mickey and Minnie where they assured her that if she wanted they would only wave at her from far away.

4. On the trip, we took our cues from her, and surprisingly, from the characters themselves. These people are so good at easing a child's apprehentions, they were so gentile and never pushed it. They got reactions out of her I never in a million years would have dreamed possible. By the end of the trip -- and I get misty thinking about it -- she was actually enthusiastically hugging her favorites. On our second day, her favorite princess, Mulan, took the time to actually cross the street, get down to her level and have a 5 minute conversation with her. Another time, we saw Piglet and let him know that she was shy around the characters and he interacted so nicely with her and even signed her book "to brave Katie." Especially if you let the characters know up front that your child is uncomfortable they will treat them accordingly and let me tell you from experience it worked wonders.

Sorry this was so long! Hope you have an amazing trip!

 

[NotUrsula]

We had seen the movie and read the book like one million times but, she totally flipped out when the mice came out because the were of course human size mice and she was expecting little mice.

Remember the commercial that Disney ran a few years back, with the two brothers packing their suitcases for the trip? The older one [the veteran] tells his younger newbie brother that, "In real life, Goofy could beat up Dad!"

All things being equal, character exposure at a movie theatre is much better than watching them on TV at home, where they are always smaller than the child. In a theatre on a big screen, they are large, more like the reality of the size of the costumed characters.

 

[NurseW2Kiddies]

Poor baby!!!! Mine was scared of the characters like princesses and Alladian. We just went with it and he eventually outgrew it. You can still have a great time!!! Good luck.

 

[Gdad]

On the bright side...think of all the money you are saving on character meals.

No kidding!

 

[blessedby3]

I feel so bad for your little one. I too was terrified of the characters at Disney when I was little. (Im turning 40 this Dec.!) I grew up in FL and we used to go to WDW all the time and I can remember clinging to my mother whenever any characters appeared. They used to roam the parks unlike now where there are mainly character meet and greets. I was more afraid of the scary characters and I have vivid memories of being in the Skyway tram and freaking out because Captain Hook was below us. My parents were trying to calm me down seeing as we were dangling from a wire high above the asphalt. I finally got over it, but cant remember at what age. I was pretty old, though when it finally subsided.
I would definately avoid character meals and meet and greets and steer him quickly away if you see any characters nearby.