When to make unwilling kid ride?

[danny1649]

Might have already been said " Never" , just my opinion.

 

[Delirium]

I disagree. I think it is a life skill to be learned, that sometimes you do things just because it will make someone else happy.

Excellent point. Unfortunately, this is something I struggle with when trying to get my kids to compromise. When I was going up, there was no sibling rivalry, let alone about petty things. It seems like an increasing proportion of the up and coming generation are slow to react to anything that does not promote their personal self interest.

 

[Puffy2]

We took our children about ages 7 and 10 to Discovery Cove to swim with the dolphins. When it came time to get in the water, my 10 year old freaked out. The dolphin was huge to her. She climbed out of the water and went and sat on the beach after being in the water for maybe 3 minutes. Nearly $200 to have her sit on the beach! My husband got mad...but I laughed at the irony...all that money and no way was she going to swim with a dolphin.

I blew it off, enjoyed the experience myself (as did my other daughter) and left my 10 year old in peace on the beach while we finished the brief experience.

Years later and now we know our then 10 year old is autistic. She had her reasons for not liking that dolphin experience (or fire works), we just didn't understand at the time.

So, my thought is, let them be and don't force it. It's supposed to be a vacation ...for everyone.

 

[Ladyfish77]

I always encouraged my boys to evaluate each ride before making a decision. This included walking through the line with the family if they were tall enough and talking about the ride. When we got to the loading area, they knew they could choose to ride or not. The only ride my son (age 8) opted out of was Space Mountain. At that time rider swap worked where one parent and child crossed over to exit side of ride and waited for the other ones to return, then parent could ride with child who took first ride with other parent. (Not sure when that rider swap ticket started, but if it was available 11 years ago we didn't know about it).

 

[Turn the Page]

I go on plenty of rides that I don't exactly enjoy, to be with my family who does enjoy them. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do what the rest of the group wants to do, instead of staying behind. Sometimes you gotta Take One For The Team.

Let's not forget there is a difference between not liking something like TOT because you don't like the sensation of dropping and not liking something like IASW just because you find it somewhat annoying or boring.

I flat our refuse to ride the tea cups because the spinning gives me horrible motion sickness and nauseated. I don't care how much the kids want me to go on it I will not ride it again.

 

[MainMom]

Our rule is that each trip, we all try each ride once. We started this when the girls were 6 & 8. The older daughter "claimed" to hate roller coasters. Yes, we made her go on them. Now she is almost 12 and she loves roller coasters. If we hadn't forced her to go, she never would have given them a chance.

My son is the same. I had him choose one ride he didn't do last time that he still was unsure of. He chose Space Mountain and liked it. He will also do splash, btmrr, and 7dmt.

Op-will your DD do barnstormer? Maybe ride that before Mine Train. Find out her currency and tell her she will get X if she does it. Bribery can work.

 

[kwdw]

I was pretty much forced onto a coaster as a kid (about 11-12) by my parents and to this day, I refuse to even try large coasters. I was terrified I was going to fall to my death the whole time. Then, when I slide around the seat (lap bar) as a thin kid, it just made my fears more real. In my late teen years, peer pressure got me on some smaller coasters by choice, but to this day, I fear coasters. I have some fun on family friendly ones, and I even tried EE to say I did it, but I doubt you'll ever see me on RnRC. Ever. Thanks, Mom and Dad. I love you, but forcing me on that ride was NOT cool. I was too old to throw tantrum, but I wish I had. I was pretty much in tears at boarding. The complete terror of that experience haunts me as I think about rides today and keeps me hesitant. I had been trying more adventurous rides slowly, and I think had they let me go at my own pace instead of forcing it, I might like thrill rides more.

So, parents, be careful about forcing kids on rides!

 

[awalker1015]

My kids are 10 and 8. My 8 yo son will ride anything anywhere. My DD10 has not fear of thrill rides but was terrified to ride Haunted Mansion. I had her watch YouTube videos (which were super hard to see) and offered her an incentive if she could get through the ride. She was scared but she did it and was so proud of herself after. She ended up riding it multiple times last trip. I think it just depends on the kid and where the fear stems from.

DD's fear was from a very gross and horrific haunted house ride at a local amusement park and it took a lot of convincing to assure her HM was cute scary not what she saw at the other one.

 

[awalker1015]

I will add that on our 2013 trip I saw parents forcing their what looked to be 7 or 8 yo son to ride ToT. He SOBBED hysterically the thirty minutes we were behind him in line. And screamed and cried (not in the fun way) throughout the ride. I felt so bad for him. He was still crying when the ride ended. Didn't seem proud that he got through it at all. I thought that approach was unnecessary and mean. And it freaked out both my kids who up to that point didn't have anxiety about the ride.

 

[awalker1015]

Let's not forget there is a difference between not liking something like TOT because you don't like the sensation of dropping and not liking something like IASW just because you find it somewhat annoying or boring.

I flat our refuse to ride the tea cups because the spinning gives me horrible motion sickness and nauseated. I don't care how much the kids want me to go on it I will not ride it again.

This is how I feel about Mission Space. If I ride it,I'm out the rest of the day and that's no good for anyone.

 

[DisneyWishes14]

I go on plenty of rides that I don't exactly enjoy, to be with my family who does enjoy them. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do what the rest of the group wants to do, instead of staying behind. Sometimes you gotta Take One For The Team.

But there's a massive difference between, say, going on Dumbo to be with your family and going on ToT. I, for one, will never ever ride ToT. I will not take that one for the team ever. But, as a team player, I will very happily hold everyone's stuff and wait for them as they go enjoy the ride. I really can't understand the notion of forcing a child onto a ride because that will make mom and dad happy.

 

[Jennasis]

I go on plenty of rides that I don't exactly enjoy, to be with my family who does enjoy them. Sometimes you have to suck it up and do what the rest of the group wants to do, instead of staying behind. Sometimes you gotta Take One For The Team.

That's fine for you. There are rides I can't go on because I know they'll make me sick and ruin the rest of the day for everyone.

And there are rides I ain't going on because "NO FREAKING WAY", and my family would never be so rude, callous or uncaring as to make me go on it just to be with them.

 

[Jennasis]

Again...it's VACATION. I just can't fathom making your kids uncomfortable/scared (even temporarily) on vacation just to prove a freaking point or so a grown adult doesn't miss out on a ride. I'm glad my parents never made an issue out of stuff like this on our vacations and let us decide when we felt ready for stuff.

 

[merrick]

my kids are nervous at theme parks so i never make them go on a ride they don't want to do. the boys were 7 and 9 when we went, so they were able to meet us on the other side of the ride. my DS9 was wreck, worried about each and every ride we tried to get him on. he still holds a slight grudge about the "sudden drop" in pirates of the caribbean. as i have posted before, he badgered the cm at "it's a small world" to know if there were any sudden drops. he was assured that they couldn't have sudden drops when babies were in their mom's arms.

a parent can (usually) tell if their child's anxiety is just a moment of nerves (hunger, tiredness, etc) or *real* anxiety. my son was stressed.... no way he was having fun in the state he was in. DS now wants to try some of the rides he was nervous of last time (though nothing like expedition everest or space mountain is in the cards!!). his brother liked goofy barnstormer so he might try that... but we'll play it by ear.

 

[Rosebud123]

Depends on the kid. I forced my son (who was in tears) to go on BTMRR when he was 5. I knew he would love it (he'd ridden and loved other scarier rides) and he did. Rode it about 5 times that trip. If I had let him "chicken" out, he would have have gone on and on and on about how mad at himself he was for not doing it.

Now that he's 11, I wouldn't force him on anything (he'll ride any of the coasters at WDW but is afraid of a bunch of the scary ones at Six Flags), but I sometimes try to encourage him to try something I know he'll like.

You know your child best!

ETA - My parents never forced me on a ride and I am a bit of a ride wimp now! I remember getting in the train on BTMRR when I was a 14 and then chickening out! My whole family climbed out with me. Looking back, I think that was ridiculous. My parents should have made me ride as I would have loved it. Sometimes wimps just need a little extra push.

 

[robndani]

Our rule is that each trip, we all try each ride once. We started this when the girls were 6 & 8. The older daughter "claimed" to hate roller coasters. Yes, we made her go on them. Now she is almost 12 and she loves roller coasters. If we hadn't forced her to go, she never would have given them a chance.

That's our rule too! My kids are 5 and every trip they have to try something new. Even if they are hesitant. I wouldn't make them go on something if they were very upset/crying though.

They get to choose the new ride, so it's a nice compromise. I agree about knowing what they like and "making" them try it!

 

[Lavitz]

First off I'd like to say how impressed I am how civil everyone has been. Honestly I was expecting this to have been derailed by the 2nd or 3rd page, but aside from a very, very small number of posts everyone has kept it very classy

I think the vast majority of us can agree we wouldn't want to be that parent who drags their clearly hysterical kid onto a ride they don't want to be on. That being said, our jobs as parents often makes it necessary to "force" our kids to do things they wouldn't want to do themselves. Vaccines at the doctor was a good example. However it really is on a kid by kid basis exactly how far we should exert our parental authority when kids are really, really adverse to trying something new. Only parents know their kids well enough to know if their kids need a push to try something they'll like, or if they really should just skip it this time and wait for when they're ready the next trip.

tldr; it depends on the kid.

 

[2manypets]

Forcing a child to get a vaccine or do homework or eat their vegetables is very different than forcing them to experience a recreational event. Yes, we all know our own children best, but I find it bordering on abusive to "force, cajole, etc.:" onto a ride they really don't want to be on. It's vacation for Pete's sake and for the entire family which includes the children. There has to be give and take with everyone involved.

 

[LinderInWonderland]

As a child, I was afraid of everything from a very young age. My poor mother took me (age 18 mos) to the annual Christmas show at Downtown Crossing in Boston and at the sight of the first animatronic mouse, I started screaming. She couldn't back out of the line or go quickly through it, so she ended up covering me entirely in her coat for the whole thing. I would hide under blankets at fireworks shows. I would hide from any person in a costume at a parade. I was 8 years old when my family took me to Disneyland for the first time. I was so scared to fly to California that I threw up constantly on the day of the flight and we carried airline sickness bags everywhere in CA. We were at Disneyland for the 25th Anniversary and I got my silver Mickey ears, but I had to be coaxed on every ride. Haunted Mansion took almost an hour of convincing. I loved every single ride.

What finally got me over my tentativeness with rides was my mother explaining that a particular corkscrew coaster in a local amusement park was only 27 seconds long. When I started looking at thrill rides as temporary bouts with fear, I started looking forward to going on them. Even now, roller coasters scare me, but I relish that momentary loss of control as part of the enjoyment. I'm glad my parents coaxed me out of myself, but I also knew if I really didn't want to go on, they wouldn't make me.

 

[tmj212]

My answer is--it depends I am 12 & 14 years older than my youngest sisters and I'm more like a Mom than a sister to them. I've always loved amusement parks and coasters and wanted to share my love of both with my favorirte girls. I forced my youngest sister to ride a coaster with me when she was about 6. She cried and blubbered the whole way in the line (about 60 minutes) and got louder the closer we got to the front of line. Oh my, the stares and looks I got along the way! I wasn't deterred and knew that I also couldn't leave a 6 y.o. alone in the park while we rode. Well, she rode the coaster and hated every second of it! She waited in the lines with us for the rest of the day and then would step through the cars to the other side and would wait the 90 seconds or so until the ride concluded. Fast forward to 2 years ago and I am in the park with my own kids and her son--who is deatlhly afraid of any thrill rides. I'm in charge once again, and as an older person and seasoned parent I do not force him to ride.

When we get back home, my baby sister (who now loves coasters) is outraged and wants to know why I didn't make him ride like I did to her?!? I just told her, I'm not his Mom, and didn't think it would be right, and then we shared a chuckle over the memory of her bawling her little heart out as a kid.