How We Helped Our Tot Overcome His Fear of Characters at Walt Disney World

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J is my oldest.  He had just turned 3 a month before we left for Disney World.  This last trip was his 4th and aside from chewing on Minnie Mouse's nose when he was 5 months old and loving it, he HATED characters at Disney World.

Our goal was never to be pushy, but to always try.  We have two kiddos so while J was fearful of characters, our younger son E really enjoyed them (our last trip in 2012 E was 10 months and J was 2). There's just that balance in parenting.  We'd approach characters with J and talk them up, but when he showed fear we held him and didn't push him to go stand with them anyway screaming like a baby in a Santa Claus picture.  We wanted to nurture the fear and work him through it in his own time.

Going into this trip we did our best prepare him again for meeting characters.  We showed him old pictures of our family with characters, pictures of kids hugging characters in promo material, and we just discussed it a lot.  Conversations sounded something like this…

Me: "Are you going to meet Mickey Mouse at Disney World?!"
J: "Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh! I meet him!"
Me: "I'm going to give him a big hug! Do you think you want to give him a hug?"

The answer for this was often no, but one day he said he wanted to hug Mickey too and then he'd always reply…

J: "Uh huh! When I see Mickey I give him a BIIIIIIG HUG!"

Then I'd go on to explain Mickey Mouse was extra special and extra big!  He had to grow to be able to meet J and give him that special hug but because he was big, he couldn't talk.  I think the SIZE of the characters and their SILENCE is what gets toddlers the most.  It's confusing.  Their tiny in the TV and their tiny in toy form.  So when you meet Mickey and he's almost as tall as Mommy or you meet Buzz and he's taller than Daddy it's overwhelming!  My speech was a total lie, but I felt like it was a way I could translate to him the size and silence so it would make sense and so most important: HE WOULD EXPECT IT.

So we got to Disney World and didn't rush straight for the characters.  We did some of their favorite rides from the previous year and then when we saw there was a 5 minute wait to meet Goofy and Donald, we headed that way.  Meeting Goofy was first.  I decided I would approach Goofy (who is HUGE) first and give him a big hug and signal to the kids to come get a great hug too.  It kind of worked.  I think the kids saw I was conformable with Goofy but they still wanted us to each hold them to meet him and then Donald (my baby who was now almost 2 had also become nervous about characters at this point).  We all smiled, they high-fived Donald and Goofy and we moved along.  And then we didn't really seek characters out for the rest of the day.

The next morning we had a breakfast scheduled at Chef Mickey's in the Contemporary Resort.  We knew this could either go horribly if they hated the characters or help break the ice.  For J, it broke the ice.  He didn't eat his food at all because he was so excited waiting for the next friend to come by.  E was KIND of okay with the character thing until Goofy stole his Buzz Lightyear toy.  It was all in fun, but I think it may have scared him away from the characters for good for the rest of the trip.  By the time Minnie and Mickey came around J was ready for BIG hugs.  I still held him because that made him feel most comfortable, but he was willing to extend himself for the hug.

We went on to meet Mickey and Buzz in Magic Kingdom later on.  J did a good job of hugging and high-fiving those guys while we held him.  E would only give high fives and then he hid in our chests.  And that's ok!  We put him on the hip further away from the characters for pics and that was ok!  We didn't push him.

Later that day, we were in line to meet Woody and Jessie.  They ended up taking a break right before our turn so we had 5 minutes of waiting before they came back out.  This actually ended up working PERFECTLY and was like the Disney magic in commercials because when they came out my kids could run right up to them and they went straight to our kids.  To this point it had been all holding J to meet characters, but not this time!  This time he RAN to Woody and gave him the world's LONGEST hug.  Literally.  Everyone in line was laughing and awww-ing and we were too because he just never wanted to let go.  I think seeing an all time favorite in real life broke the eyes and blew his mind wide open.  E did better here too.  He gave hugs by himself and then got back into my arms.  J took our family pic here on his own standing next to Jessie.  It was a big moment!

Going forward we encouraged him to approach all characters on his own for hugs.  We carried E up but also asked him if he wanted to meet whoever.  Usually he said yes, but sometimes he said no.  For example, when we were at Hollywood Studios and had the chance to meet both Buzz and Woody in "Andy's room" J was on cloud 9 but E wanted nothing to do with it.  So my husband took him and they strolled around HS while J and I stood in line.  I hoped this visit would be exclusively J without me involved or in the pics and that's just what happened!  When he turned the corner for his turn, he bolted to Buzz and Woody.  They engaged him right away and played with him and he had SO MUCH fun!!!  He was just beaming and still talks about it months later.  I was definitely teary eyed watching the whole thing.

The last characters we met were real people… the princesses and then Peter Pan and Wendy.  J gave "Tangled" the biggest hug and got to spend about 5 minutes with her.  She just hugged him the whole time and talked about Maximus and Flynn Rider.  She was FANTASTIC.  It was fun to see him interacting with real people acting like characters.  Peter Pan was also AMAZING.  He was showing J the map of Neverland and discussing Captain Hook with him.  J loved it!  Wendy asked to rock him to sleep and he obliged.  I didn't think he'd ever want to leave her lap.  E met Wendy and Peter too but wanted nothing to do with the princesses which really surprised me!  I thought they'd be less frightening but he was just not their fan!  He was pretty terrified of them so he stayed away.  Wendy was SO sweet with him and he did a little better with her.

So at the end of the day, my advice for approaching characters with scared kids is to try.

-- Just because they were scared last time doesn't mean they won't work past the fear this time.
-- Don't force them to the characters, but go with them and hold them and let them ease their way in.
-- Be as excited and as enthusiastic about it all as a Disney cast member.  If you feel confident, they will too.
-- Take them to their hero because meeting their favorite person ever might really break the ice!
-- Ask.  If they're nervous, ask if they want to try while you hold them.  Then as they ease up ask if they want to get down.  Stay low with them so they know you're there.  Work it up slowly and easily.  Eventually it'll happen and it'll be great!  I know in January or maybe when E is 3 I might have two boys who just take off and do it all by themselves!