How do you get your child to ride?

[catwub]

My dd and I are going for our second mother/dd trip this Christmas and she is afraid of some of the rides. I would never force her, or make fun, but I think she would really like some of them if she would try. She does ride some of the smaller rides, which I love!!! But I asked her about Goofy's Barnstormer and she said, "no way!" same response to the Haunted Mansion. I think she would like them both but I don't know what words of encouragement I can give...any thoughts?


thank you
Catwub

 

[jlaspoq]

You don't say how old she is, but my almost 13 year old STILL won't ride the Haunted Mansion! You just can't convince them sometimes - maybe they really do know best! Barnstormer is great fun - maybe go at opening time and follow Goofy into the line? (He often rides the first run of the day - my DDs got to ride right behind him.)

 

[disnutt]

I bribed my 9 yo to ride a small coaster here at our local Six Flags. I told her I would give her money to buy any souvenier she wanted. I also said she could get two if she didn't truly like the ride. Fortunately, I know her tastes and it only worked out to $5. Now, she's ready for all the Disney Mountains!

 

[jenndisney]

My daughter was the same way, but we finally pleaded with her. I do not like "big" roller coasters and so the deal was that if she tried Barnstormer, HM and BTMR, I would ride Rockin Rollercoaster at MGM. That did the trick. She had to try something new and so did I. The other key is to start out simple. Go from Pirates to HM to barnstormer. "Work up to it"

How old is your daughter?

 

[poohbear2]

My son loves the gift shops. So when he was younger, I would tell him the only way you can get to the gift shops was to go on the rides. You know how every ride conviently empties out into the gift shop. This worked really well. I felt a little guilty about it, but it worked! AND he had a great time on the rides.

 

[catwub]

She will be seven on our trip. I hope she will change her mind, but hse is pretty stubborn. Thanks for the help!!!!

 

[stingmom]

we explain to our DD6 that we would never have her ride a particular ride if it would hurt her. we told her the HM was all pretend and make believe and she should LAUGH at the silly ghosts. She decided that she would ride with her ears covered and close her eyes if she felt she needed to do so (she did) and I purchased a CHEAP ($1) keychain flashlight and clipped it to my fanny pack and she could turn that on at ANY time, yet not disturb other guests

 

[Nolcrest]

When my daughter was 4 we went in the Haunted Mansion. She was pretty scared and don't you know it that the ride stopped working for about 10 minutes. We were stuck by one of the ghosts that keeps poppin up. After seeing that ghost jump at us about 100 times she overcame her fear. She actually had a chance to see how make believe it all was.

I know this doesn't help you but this thread reminded me of that time. I like the gift shop bribe myself. Sometimes they just need that gentle push to try new things.

 

[ralfrick]

You've got time; start training her now at the local fair, amusement park, if a carnaval sets up in a parking lot, etc. The more you can expose her to rides, especially gradually over time, the more likely for success,

Cheers.

 

[kidzmom3]

my haunted mansion suggestion is a small pen light. We got them for our children. They are the very small squishy sqare type (about the size of a book of matches) you squeeze it and the tiny light bulb lights up, let go and it goes out. It is just enough light for the child, but not enough to disturb anyone or effect the ride scenes.

 

[Cindy B]

We just get all in and go. We say "Lets ride" and they do. I guess in thier minds its Disney World,nothing can be scary...

 

[catwub]

anybody have the site that takes you on the little tour of the ride...or something like that. I know there was a thread once and it had lots of pictures...from inside as well as out. May not have been this site, may not have even been taped with permission, but I have seen it. We are now negotiating. It is a long way so I hope by the time it is for real instead of just pictures she will consider it. Thanks all!!!

 

[MinnieM3]

WE have this problem, too, with DS5 and a half. He used to do some rides, and now he won't. I KNOW he can do them he just insists he doesn't want to. So someone in our group has to sit out with him and miss the ride or go in shifts. Ugh!

Things he won't go on now: Pirates of Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Figment Ride!, Mickey's PhilHarMagic, Honey I Shrunk the Audience, Splash Mountain.

He WILL do BTMRR, Pooh, Tea cups, Aladdin, Jungle Cruise, Peter Pan, Small World (over and over), Rio delTiempo (over and over and over) Maelstrom, Test Track, Spaceship EArth, Elln Ride, Buzz, TTA.

NO Mission Space or Space Mountain, which is fine with us.

We have no strategies to get him to ride those first rides..... he acts like we're Torturing him and it gets embarrassing! But then like with TEst Track, he had a fit and as soon as he got off he HAD to ride it again. It's not his#1ride!

Bribes don't work. Any other ideas? I don't want to end up written about on the DIS..."You wouldn't believe this family I saw, FORCING their little boy on POC. I mean he didn't want to go.... etc.! "

 

[catwub]

well, I found the site on my own....big mistake. I did the virtual tour thinking I coudl show her how fake it looked....once she saw that the "ghosts" jumped out at you and then one actually appears to be in your buggie at the end...NO WAY!!! No bribes, no coercing, she is not going. Oh, well, maybe in a few years. I guess they go when they are ready. I hope she will do Test Track and some of the ones just mentioned, but I will not be holding my breath

Catwub

 

[dawgsgirl]

I paid my cousin's 8 year old $20 to ride Spaceship Earth. No way she was going up in that flimsy old thing? She loves to shop, so the money did the trick. Little did she know I was planning on giving her the money anyway, so she could shop!

 

[jjan]

We had the same problem with our 7 year old DD. We went last Dec. and she did all of the mild rides but had a lot of fear for all of the roller coasters and "thrill" rides and wouldn't do them. Then the other day I bought her the Birnbaum's Walt Disney World for Kids by Kids 2005 and that is all it took. It explained all of the rides and why the "scary" rides were scary and what to expect. It had lots of tips and hints and now she is all excited to try everything even Tower of Teror (we'll see how that goes). For less than $13 it might be worth trying.

 

[JABEAR]

We started getting ready in advance of our trip. When we were in the car and were going down a hill of decent size, I would say "Rollercoaster!!" and we would all hold our hands up in the air (I left one hand on the wheel just for the sake of safety...lol) and shout OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhhhhh, OOOOOOOOOOOhhhhh on the way down each hill. When we were in the parks, I would explain that this was just like riding in the car except we wouldn't be going as fast. I was shocked to find out that Test Track was his favorite ride. That ride pulls some pretty good G's but we made sure to laugh during the whole ride and throw in the occasional OOOOOOOOOOOOhhhh's.

 

[Aidensmom]

My son loves the gift shops. So when he was younger, I would tell him the only way you can get to the gift shops was to go on the rides. You know how every ride conviently empties out into the gift shop. This worked really well. I felt a little guilty about it, but it worked! AND he had a great time on the rides.

What an evil little trick, bet it would work with my son!

My son is 3, so, well, has some crazy ideas about some things. I ask him what he is afraid of, and reassure him that the ride does not have that. This usually works because he wants to show that he is brave.

This however backfired on me when he was scared of the Pooh ride because he thought there might be thunder (during a freak thunderstorm last year, one of our 60 ft oak trees came down through our roof and into my bedroom! ) and I said, this is Winnie the Pooh, its not going to thunder! Well, I should have known as I have recently discovered MOST of the attractions have thunder! He still tells me to this day "You said Pooh didn't have any thunder, I was scared."

 

[EEyorelover22]

Last year DD just turned 11 and it was the first time to ride Dino, TT, RnR, BTMRR. She loves them now. She still won't do Splash Mountain, Mission Space or ToT which is fine with me. On our first trip in 2001, we rode Space Mountain and she wasn't ready for those type of rides and it took me till 2004 to get her to try anything new in the roller coaster family. We didn't do Pirates or HM that year either. She almost got off Test Track and BTMRR last year even! We were walking into BTMRR and she wanted to leave so we kept walking and she got upset and I told her we couldn't turn around and we had to keep going and the CM would tell us what to do. He told us to walk through the car and exit. When she saw the car, she was fine as it didn't have the big shoulder bar like RnR so we rode. She rode 7 times in a row!! At Test Track, at the last point you can exit, she almost got off. In fact, the CM was upset with DH because he wouldn't let her off. She was pretty worked up. We were both worried that we wouldn't find her after the ride. I think Test Track is a more mild ride too. She almost didn't ride Pirates because of the dip at the beginning that she remembered from the year before!! She is just not a big ride kind of kid. I don't make her ride anything after the Space Mountain experience. She screamed the entire time...she was scared to death.

 

[ribbot]

We didn't discuss the rides with our son, who's 5. We would just get into line and if we thought it might be scary, we'd just say this might be a little scary, if it is---just close your eyes, we're right here. Well, that worked great for us----and when we got to the haunted mansion, we actually made a game of it by telling him to scare the people back! So he'd yell BOO!! when they'd pop up.

I thought he would have been scared with Splash Mountain and thunder canyon AND Tower of Terror---but he LOVED them! He did them all twice without hesitation. I couldn't even bring myself to do Tower of Terror twice!!