Fears of a Four Year Old (Fantasy v. Reality)
Boo loves movies. Well, sort of.
For the longest time, if you even mentioned the “m” word, she’d scream “NO!” as though you were proposing to take her to be a tester at a dental floss factory. She wouldn’t watch a DVD, even if it was for a show that she’d already seen on TV our on tape-delay, courtesy of our DVR. Sorry Barney. You’re SOL. (Awww shucky darns!)
We keep our kids “screen time” pretty limited, so we were happy to keep the TV limited to the most benign, pedestrian shows out there. While her 4-year-old peers are loving Scooby Doo and Super Why, she’s content with Signing Time and Oswald. Even then, the high drama of Angelina Ballerina (Eeegads - will Angelina’s new ballet slippers arrive in time, or will she lose her spot to her nemisis?) is often too much to bear.
Where does this come from? I have no idea. The first time I recall her really expressing fear at a fictional character was when we took her on a double-date with Popping Bubbles and Mr. W’s LW to a Sesame Street Live show. I think she was about two and a half. She had seen the show the year before and loved it. We thought this would be a chance to ingrain a more permanent memory for our $70 family pricetag.
Oh my, did we create a permanent memory.
It wasn’t a good one, though.
She reached her limit at about 20 minutes into the show, where she became a screaming, sobbing mess. I spent the rest of the time in the foyer holding and rocking her. Who knew a 6-foot blue furry monster screaming about cookies could be so frightening. Well, uh, hummm. Maybe if I was less than half his size and a quarter of his weight, I would be a little freaked out too.
So, now she’s four. She’s a little better now. We made it through Mary Poppins a few weeks ago, but the rainy day scene where they jumped into the chalk paintings was a little touch and go. I think we’re also cool with Dumbo. Flying elephants are apparently in the clear.
On the other hand, The Little Mermaid’s Sea Witch, 101 Dalmations‘ Cruella DeVille, and Cinderella’s Wicked Stepmother are still off-limits. And let’s not even mention Malificent from Sleeping Beauty (pictured above). We read that book to her the other day and she was up at least twice that night with nightmares. We went to Wall-E yesterday and she spent the better part of the movie on my lap shuddering in fear over robots trying to save a seedling in a boot and insanely obese people in hover chairs drinking cupcake slurpees.
All of this fear is from a girl who loves to watch nature documentaries. Piles of bat guano. No problem. Wolves chasing caribou and eating a calf. No eyelashes batted.
What do we learn from this? Fantasy is scarier than reality for Boo. But think about it. Is that really a bad thing?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone in this. My almost 10 year old has never seen “The Wizard of Oz” and quite a few other movie classics because they’re just too stressful.
“My” nine year old is going through this now, for the first time. Admittedly, he was scared of the dinosaurs in Fantasia when he was a baby, but who could blame him? Now he’s afraid of the dark, of being alone in a room… but never a movie he wants to see. Strange, that, eh?
Little Man is scared of SOME costumed characters, but not others. It is really hit and miss with him. He was fine with hugging Cookie Monster at Busch Gardens, but when he saw Chuck E Cheese he freaked out. He also refuses to watch Willy Wonka or Charlie and the Chocolate factory, because of Violet turning into a blueberry. He calls both of them the scary movies. I completely understand where you are coming from here!
I’m a little freaked out by that video.. talk about scared! LMAO!
I can’t blame her for being afraid of witches and wicked stepmothers, but I do find it peculiar she can stomach nature documentaries. I even have to cover my eyes sometimes!
Yea I agree… Mary Poppins= TOTAL HIT!!! Thats all she wanted to watch that weekend. Dumbo not so much, maybe she grew into it.
I posted that video on my blog a while back. It never gets old looking at it.
Boo is still a little girl. Enjoy it as long as you can.
I tried Lady and the Tramp a few days ago with LittleBird. Um,no. We didn’t even make it 15 minutes into the film. So, for now we will stick to The Aristocats and Seven Brides For Seven Brothers. Yup. You read that right. She can sit through the entire 7Bfor7B musical, but can’t handle Disney. She’s gonna be on Broadway someday.
Jen - I haven’t even thought about the red shoes yet. Heaven help us.
Greytfriend - I’m convinced all kids hit this sooner or later and in differing degrees of severity. Hey, I know adults who can’t handle clowns.
Mel - Violet Beauregard scares me too.
MissA - yep. She can handle watching a tiger eat an elephant calf, but an animated mouse yelling at a flying elephant is too much.
DayMommy - Mary P. is the coolest ever, especially since she “met” her at her birthday lunch last year at Disneyland.
CV - Sorry for the inadvertent steal. Great minds think alike, I guess.
NATUI - Boo loves Seven Brides, although the avalanche scene was a bit intense for her. Now she thinks PoppingBubble’s LW is going to kidnap her and make her spend the winter in the mountains so we’ll let her marry him. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen for real, although I think both dads would show up with their shotguns.
That explains everything now NM!!!