help with scared 3 year old

[jey]

Our DS will be 3 on our trip in Jan. 2006. All of the sudden he seems scared of rides. We just returned from Dollyworld and he wouldn't ride half the rides. I hope this is just a phase he is going through. Any suggests for helping him feel comfortable about the rides so that he will go on them?

 

[Laurabearz]

Disney is a lot more little kid freindly than Dollywood (altough I will admit never going to Dollywood, but I think it is a fair asumption) Take it slow... do outside rides first, maybe Mickey's Philharmagic.... small world.... tea cups, and then hit toontown....

We also bought a light up stick (not from Disney) for our girls for the 'dark parts' of Tomorrowland Transit Auth... worked wonders. I would let them know that there was 3 dark parts... they would count them, play with the lights, and it got them used to the dark parts.

HTH

 

[alloyd1170]

Order the free dvd planning guides to help prep for your trip. Also, to help with the characters, check out the Disney Sing Along Videos (not the cartoon versions, but the live characters interacting with kids throughout the parks-Beach Party, Small World, and Campground titles are good). My son had a sudden fear of Santa and I read about these videos here. I got them about 3 mos before our trip and the planning dvd. My son watched them all the time (still does) and did pretty well for his first trip (at age 2). He did pretty good with the characters from the videos, but if they werent in them, he was afraid. We saved Chef Mickeys for our last day so that he could get used to the characters in the parks. As for the rides, be sure to check out the ratings for them with regards to kids. The dark ones, including the 3d movies, scared our son to death. He did fine with the carousel (he loves them anyways), indy cars (really liked this), dumbo, train, monorail, small world (big hit there), and the other tame rides. Whatever you do, dont force him to ride something he doesnt want to.

alison

 

[perpetualplanner]

We used to explain to our DS (now 9 but we actually still use it with him). If it doesn't have a seatbelt then it's safer than riding in the car. He rides in the car so this must be ok. If he's still scared (which he was) we said just try 1 and we'll see how it goes. Make sure you pick something that doesn't have a scary theme - like Pooh, IASW, Buzz, etc...

Even now at 9 he still will start to get nervous sometimes and we'll just ask "Does it have a seatbelt?" He then knows it'll be ok - we did have a problem with TestTrack though!! He DIDN'T want to be a crash test dummy - I guess that's smart but it was hard to convince him they really weren't going to crash him into a wall.

 

[Aneille]

My experience with my 3 year old rode was that she rode everything she was tall enough for except Tower of Terror (no one in our group rode it) and Splash Mtn. She had no problem with Big Thunder or Test Track but she really dislikes Mickey's Philarmagic!

For her it is loud and because its 3D the characters jump out at you. The theme is not scary at all, and my daughter has sat through it twice (once on 2 different trips) she just covers her eyes and only watches certain parts but if I knew my child was nervous about rides, you may not want to start with that one. Just my experience.

IASW, Pooh, Alladin, Dumbo, Carosal, Buzz in my experience would be better choices to start off with.

 

[trayletha]

Got to agree with the above - skip Philharmagic (sp?) AND "It's a Bug Life" at AK my DD got scared on that our first trip and still won't got to it. I'd just try to go real slow with no expectations. Maybe start out with a ride on the train around MK or walk around FL - you can always do baby swap if you've got another adult with you. You could actually do this on any of the rides then talk back a forth about how fun it was - leaving your son out of the conversation.

 

[jey]

Thanks for the replies. I bought the Sing Along videos this winter- we just haven't watched them. I am also going to try to get him to watch special Disney programs on the Travel Channel.

 

[Mr Poohbrain]

Isn't it funny, how different every child is?? My son LOVED Mickey's Philharmonic when we went back in April (had to see it 4 times!), but we made the mistake of going through the "big ball" in Epcot, and he HATED it! After that, we stayed away from the dark rides (except for Philharmonic).

FYI - your DS may like the "race cars" (I think they're in/around future world) in MK. That was a popular ride for DS - he waited in line for over 45 minutes with no complaints.

Good luck!

Mrs. PB

 

[bartleby1]

Do you know what he is afraid of? Each child has different fears and if you can identify what exactly he is afraid of it might be helpful. Is it dark rides? Or loud noises? Is it spinning rides? Flying rides?

Once you know exactly what bothered him most, you can start with rides that don't have those issues to build up his confidence and then move on to some others slowly.