Non-speaking characters

[AndreAggie]

What do your tell your kids when they ask why some of their favorite characters are unable to speak??

 

[Mysteryincorp]

How old are your kids? I tell my daughter they can't talk in disneyland, only on TV or the movies. She totally accepted that without another thought. She does seem to grasp the concept that the are not real though.....so maybe she's just humoring me

 

[mikana876]

I've never had that issue. My kids know that the characters aren't real. They still enjoy the fun of it all

 

[AndreAggie]

My son is 4, will be 2 months shy of turning 5 when we're there. He has a very inquisitive mind and I'm fairly certain he'll ask. Just want to be prepared! I'm not sure at what age they figure they're not "real".

 

[crystal1313]

We were just there last week and DS4 who will be 5 in oct asked while standing in line to see Pluto, "who is in the Pluto suit?" I had no idea what to say. It was his first time meeting a character ever! He's always been too shy. I don't know where he even got that from.

 

[Stitch35]

During Memorial Day weekend my DS8 thought he saw a zipper on Pooh. I told him that's how he got his shirt on over his belly. I'm not sure if he's humoring me at this point, but the way he reacted to Thor, I am pretty sure he still believes. My DS5 who is extra special and notices EVERYTHING met one of the Country Bears and saw the person inside. I told him that the real country bear couldn't leave splash mountain so he asked a friend to pretend to be him. He then started asking about the holes in pluto's tongue, which are now his taste buds. Thankfully Minnie, who he LOVES doesn't have any sign of anything out of the ordinary.

 

[AndreAggie]

We were just there last week and DS4 who will be 5 in oct asked while standing in line to see Pluto, "who is in the Pluto suit?" I had no idea what to say. It was his first time meeting a character ever! He's always been too shy. I don't know where he even got that from.

What did you tell him??

 

[crystal1313]

I said, "that sure looks like the real Pluto to me." I don't think it worked because I heard him tell my dad there was a man in the Pluto suit I know some people say they don't want to lie to their kids, but for me, telling them it's a man in the suit feels like I am taking part of their innocence away, part of the fun of being a child and believing in all the magic. It made me sad that at 4, he is already catching on. Hopefully by next trip, he will forget about that.

 

[Renae De Liz]

I tell my kids that they are trying to be quiet and gentle so they don't frighten the younger kids. Worked for them.

My eldest did ask when he was 6-7 why they don't look like cartoons. I had to make up something on the fly, so I said that they are really cartoons (like in Roger Rabbit) but they wear costumes so they don't scare people who aren't used to seeing animated creatures in real life. He seemed to go for it, but now I wish I would have said something like " They only look like cartoons in cartoon world" or something like that.

 

[bryanb]

I guess every kid is different though. As a kid, my stuffed Mickey Mouse plush was the "real" Mickey to me. And his appearance on TV and at Disneyland were just representations of him, but they were no more "true" than the Mickey in my room at home. It wasn't important to me to reconcile imagination into reality.

In my observations, the line between real and make-believe in younger children isn't a hard line. They haven't yet crossed that point where the magic is diminished. Pretend and play are just as valid as truth.

For that reason, I don't think most kids feel betrayed when they find out Mickey is a person in a suit, any more than they might be betrayed to know that Mickey plush has stuffing inside.

 

[disneytexas]

My DD just turned 5 the day we left, she totally believed the princesses were real and told me not to be concerned because the others were just costumes. Yet when we had our character breakfast she was afraid if stitch! I think she wanted to convince herself more than me they were just in costume but perhaps they could be real thankfully he was very gentle and sweet with her.

 

[pennyring]

Kids are funny in the way they reconcile these things. Our niece was 8 when we took her last year. She fully believed in every single princess, but informed me that in the parade, "Ariel's tail is fake!!" because everyone knows she lost her tail when she became human. Duh!! She totally didn't get why Parade Ariel would wear a fake tail.

 

[chabelita545]

(Oops! Duplicate post.)

 

[chabelita545]

My DS at age 5: Mommy, is that the real Stitch?
Me: What do you think?
DS5: I think yes!
Me: I think so, too.

My kids never asked why some characters don't talk. I guess they were always too excited to think about it.