My little one is now scared of Characters-HELP

[Donald Ducks Friend]

Ok, so last year my little guy liked Santa and the Easter Bunny. Not this year! He cryed and would not go anywhere near them. He turned 2 the end of the year so I don't know if its his age or whats going on. None of my other kids ever showed any fear for characters like this. Now I'm thinking whats going to happen at WDW in July. We have several character meals booked and we were so looking forward to getting some really cute pics of him with them. I would never force him to be near them its just kind of a bummer that he's decided to be scared of them. Any suggestions????

 

[SmallWorld71]

None of my kids liked the characters at age 2. It took until they were close to 3 for them to outgrow it. Unfortunately, nothing but time worked for them so I don't have any good advice for you. All of our pics from when DS11 was 2 have me in them holding him about 2 feet away from the characters. Of course, he went on and on about how he met the characters when we got home even though he was terrified at the time. Anyway, he may outgrow it by then or he many not. Or, like DD he may be O.K. with some but not all characters. Characters or not, you will have plenty of great photo ops! Have fun!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

The characters are very good about noticing if a child is goingto have a problem with them or not.

I've always put my young one's on the floor and allowed them to approach the character if they wanted to.

At meals, for a skittish child, I would put the child in the least reachable seat--the characters will come to greet--the table provides a nice barricade and then the child can decide if they wish to get closer.

I've used this technique for all of my children with any costumed character anywhere. IF they showed any signs of discomfort, I would follow their lead.

Over time I have had much success in that I haven't traumatized any of my children, yet.

While you may not get any of the pictures you have imagined--having my child feel secure was more important than any photograph. Keep in mind that many digital cameras have a movie setting and in the event that you cannot capture a still image, you can still document the meeting and often capture a still from that. (though it won't be of high quality).

My brother freaked out all the way to age 8....that was his first trip that he didn't freak out.

At age 6, we really tried to prepare him--he was very gung ho and kept chanting that he would meet Mickey Mouse. But when that meeting came....he screamed.

Safe to say that he grew out of that, takes pics with the characters with no trouble at all...and even did the CP with the mouse later on.

 

[Wendybird55]

Santa and Mickey may not have the same affect.
My son became "scared" of Santa around the age of 2 as well. His picture with Santa at 2 has him almost crying and this year at age 3 we didn't even bother as he freaked out while on line. HOWEVER, we took him to Disney when he was almost 2, almost 3 and we're going again this year before his
4th birthday and he's been fine with the Disney characters all times. Nothing like his reaction to Santa (he's so-so with Easter bunny).

So you never know - he may have a great time with the characters. I wouldn't worry about the character meals as the characters are very good with kids who are tentative - they don't force themselves on the kids. Plus your son will have the opportunity to see the characters from a distance at first as they are visiting other tables.

Remember Disney characters are familiar to your son. Chances are he watches them on TV has toys and such with characters and this might make them less scary to him when he sees them.

Good luck and have fun

 

[kchughes]

I haven't been able to get a picture of my DS (7) with Santa or the Easter Bunny since he was 2, but he is all over the characters. At first he didn't want to have anything to do with face characters, only the full costumed ones. Now he flirts with all of them, especially the princesses and Alice. If you don't stress about it and just take him up, put yourself between him and the character, he will get the idea that they are fun and won't hurt him Good Luck

 

[design_mom]

Santa and Mickey may not have the same affect.

I agree with this. I wouldn't panic yet. My son was PETRIFIED of costumed characters, including Santa, at that age. We once had to leave a restaurant because their mascot was going around greeting kids at tables. My son didn't care that he wasn't at *our* table, he didn't want to be in the same restaurant.

I wasn't sure how our trip to WDW would go. Fortunately, you don't *have* to interact with characters if you don't want to. We spent the first day avoiding characters like the plague, and distracting DS if we saw one.

Near dinnertime, my son looked at me and said, "Hey. I thought Mickey Mouse lived here. Where is he?" I explained that he had a house over in Toon Town, and DS said, "Can we go see him?" Um...sure. You could have knocked me over with a feather. We waited in line and I was *sure* DS would bolt as soon as he saw Mickey, but he didn't. And he didn't have any problems with any of the characters at WDW. I don't know what the difference was, but... I was one happy mom.

On the same trip, my niece (who was only a year) did not care for the characters. At our character breakfast, the characters were very good about knowing what to do. My sister still got some good photos with the characters. They are either standing near my niece (like behind her but not touching her), or it's a photo of the character, and my sister, and her daughter, etc. It'll all work out. (My DS still won't get his picture with Santa though... he prefers to write letters.)

 

[PiperPizzaz]

My DS loved the characters SO much at 11 mos. and freaked out at 2 (we were there for his birthday). When we went again he was 2 1/2 he was still nervous but, since he saw Daddy giving Minnie high fives he decided it must be ok and stook near her and gave her five. At 3 he still was slightly nervous but, was giving hugs and high fives etc. So, basically you just never know but, I suggest having the child see how Mom or Dad likes them and letting them approach the character on their own (not with you carrying them).

Oh and my DS never has had anything to do with Santa (except for the presents, ha ha) or the Easter Bunny or a dinosaur at our children's museum. He does kind of like the cow at chick-fil-a but, that could be because we are there so much and the cow steals my DHs hat all the time so he is funny.

 

[brymolmom]

Been there - done that. My dd hated characters for a LONG time! I say to look on the bright side - one of my BEST scrapbook pages is the one that is titled 'DON'T CRY FOR ME!' with pics from Crystal Palace when she screamed every time a character came near her. It was quite humorous!! You'll get PLENTY of cute pics with her in a couple years with characters...but this may be your only opportunity to have a red-faced screaming picture of your child with a character!

DD is 6 now and honestly still doesn't LOVE the characters. She sometimes opts not to be in pics with them (but her brother will still be in them). But we get plenty of pics and have for a couple years of her with characters. So it'll come with time...

 

[Soonji]

I took my little cousin (3) to Disney last year, and she started off nervous about the characters, but ended up loving them by the end. What I did while her parents were renting a stroller is this -- we went to the front area (by the Mickey flowers) and sat for a while and just watched the characters interact with other kids from a safe distance. She got to watch them as much as she wanted, and she realized that the characters wouldn't hurt her.

 

[dislaney]

Mine went through the terrified of character faze. I did notice that face characters were fine at that age -she loved the Princesses. Mickey and Minnie not so much. The next trip, completely back to normal.

 

[jennk1425]

DS at 20 months would only give the characters high-fives. Which, of course, made for some awesome pictures! We are going again at the end of the month and I will start with the high-fives and see if I can throw a hug in there, maybe even get him to point to an eye or nose. He loves that.

 

[kwitcherkicken99]

Sorry to hear you're having so much trouble.

There are a couple of things you could try... at your character meals, set your LO as far from the edge of the table as possible. I've also been told that you can wave off the characters too. (I can imagine the characters would see your LO isn't feeling it, will wave, and move on.)

OR you could try an autograph book. It gives the kids a reason to go see the characters versus just going up. They have something they can hide behind and it helps open up a line of communication.

Good luck!

 

[Lidian]

Last year, we didn't expect DS3 (at the time) to have a fear of the characters. Our first meeting was with Pooh and Tigger, and he was mortified (even though he watches Pooh on TV everyday).

We met several other characters throughout the day (Alice, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, some Princesses ...), but he refused to go near them. At this point, I was a bit discouraged, but I never forced him near a character (as I had character fears when I was younger myself).

It wasn't until we met Donald Duck that he snapped out of it. He literally ran up to Donald, gave him a hug, and handed him his prized possession (a toy train) to play with. After meeting Donald, for the most part, he was okay with meeting the other characters (and even met Pooh and Tigger later that week).

So don't give up and don't be discouraged. He may be afraid of some of the characters, but that doesn't mean he'll be afraid of all.

 

[AJRitz]

I'm having the same concerns about my DS3, who will be nearly 4 when we go in October. He's currently terrified of characters. He REFUSED to go into McDonald's for a month after Ronald McDonald showed up once while he was playing in the Play Place. I showed him a picture of Mickey Mouse at WDW, and asked him if he'd like to meet Mickey. He said, "NO! Because he's too big and scary!" (This from a child who LOVES dinosaurs, and talks readily about how they eat each other).

I've still got nearly six months for him to get better about it, but I did redo our ADR planning for our trip, and took out all of the character meals except CRT and Akershaus (which should be OK, since they still look like regular-sized and "normal" people).