Over the past year we've tried to introduce animated kids movies, such as Toy Story, to DD4. These movies all tend to follow a similar arc - the main character has to overcome a great set back or triumphs over being an outcast and at the end he realizes how truly strong/great he always was and regains his self confidence. You know the typical story.

When watching these movies DD feels so upset for the plight of the characters that she sobs uncontrollably and will not stop. She is extremely empathetic and feels bad that they are being mistreated or for how Woody feels. We usually stop watching because she's too upset about what is happening.

With the holidays here there are a lot of animated specials where characters "discover the meaning of Christmas" that involve similar plot lines. Most of the other kids we know are currently watching these movies along with all of the other animated Disney princess movies - which DD finds either upsetting or boring.

Is this something that anyone has gone through? How can I help her learn to gain some control over feeling like this? I know she logically understands the story line but when it's happing it's too much for her. I remember having a lot of intense feelings like this as a kid but I don't think it was to this extent.

It's not a priority that we watch these movies. I just want to help her be able to have some coping mechanism for her emotions. For now we are sticking with watching "How it's Made" on Discovery or "Food Factory" on food network and other kids science shows. I wonder if they have Christmas specials...
Thanks!

You are describing my dd4! We haven't finished watching any movies with her because of the exact same reason. She completely understands that the story is going to end happy but as soon as a "bad thing happens or the bad person makes his/her entry, tears start rolling. One time she bawled watching an innocuous Mickey Mouse cartoon where a character is falsely accused of some petty mischief. In fact, i cant even read many books to her due to the same reason. we are back to watching pbs kids and reading mostly picture books. One thing that has helped us is to fast forward all the bad parts and watch only the good parts. At least that way we get to the end. Sometimes, if the bad scenes are short, we ask her to hide behind our backs as we narrate a milder and abridged summary of the scenes so she has continuity. I am hoping as she grows older she will still have empathy but also have the mental maturity to handle these. I will wait till she gets to the point.

That sounds like one of our neighbors. The parents had to leave Finding Nemo because she was in tears. She was probably five years old.

I assume that she is past that now. We don't see her that much, but she seems like a normal 10th grader. It will get better (and likely long before 10th grade). My kid who is also in 10th was always one to watch, read and write dark stuff, so she didn't understand this kid at all. However, I now understand why the Common Sense website says that The Lion King is for kids six and up - some kids are sensitive. As long as this stage doesn't last beyond seven or so, I think it is normal.

I don't have lots of time, but wanted to respond. There are a couple of threads in the past where people discuss their different approaches to this issue.

First, I would say this is not a rare problem, at least on this board. We opted to avoid movies like this until the kids were comfortable handling their emotions (basically, by that point, they had no interest in watching this type of movie anyway). The only downside we saw was a relative cultural gap- as you mentioned, it seems like every other kid in the world lives and breathes Disney. I the end, it didn't matter. The kids still don't know the plot lines of basic Disney films, but it doesn't hold them back (though it is funny now that their middle school is putting on Disney-themed musicals and our kids are a bit in the dark). If it really mattered, the kids seemed to handle books/written material somewhat better, but we didn't really care and let them take the lead on what was comfortable for them- it's entertainment, after all. I guess the only other issue was when visiting others, or at a party where a group movie was planned; sometimes we left early, sometimes the host/relatives got the message and chose something else to do, but it wasn't a huge deal.

The second problem is finding things they do want to watch, and it seems like you have a handle on this already. We also watched science and non-fiction a lot. The library had tons of good animal videos (we watched a lot of National Geographic, for instance). As far as holiday-themed things, the only two I remember being well-loved in our house at that age are "the Snowman" and "the Bear." Both are animated, gentle, without dialogue, and with lovely music. The kids still remember them fondly. They also watched a movie called "Milo and Otis" often; not holiday-themed or animated, but a gentle animal adventure about a cat and dog.

Both kids are Ok with movies their peers enjoy at this point; DD 13 actually likes scary movies (DS11 not so much, even Men in Black bothers him, but he is a particularly gentle soul; he does read more "violent" stuff without issue though). I think they needed to feel in control of their emotional reactions and when little, their very strong reactions to things were frightening.

Our DS has always been sensitive to movies, and some books as well. We even had to stop reading the "Life of Fred" math book series for a few months after all of Fred's money was stolen.

It is getting a little better with time (he is now 7). He still gets a little emotional, but will continue to watch. The three things that have helped are (1) I have to watch the movie first to make sure everything is okay at the end; (2) Sometimes he watches the first 10 minutes of a movie, then the last 10 minutes, then he can go back and watch the middle; and (3) talking about how movie makers try to make the viewers feel sad/scared/nervous and why.

We were at the live Nemo production at Disney - beautiful, broadway level production, the lights go down, bubbles come out, then, you hear my then 3 year old DS, where's the mommy, where did the mommy go!!!! He was inconsolable, it was awful.

He would get extremely stressed down during movies - like monsters inc - toy story, could do pbs cartoons. But he never got troubled by all the books that started with dead parents, but did have trouble when parent or cared about person dies in middle. He explained it to me at 5 as that in books he can skip ahead, what he really couldn't tolerate was the pacing of movies and that he had no way of knowing all would work out. Now at almost 8 he watched the Incredibles and had no trouble with the torture scene but flipped out at the end of the phineas and ferb movie where perry is watching the pictures of his family he is not supposed to have. Oh and we just saw his first in the theater movie - despicable me 2 this summer.

We went with the theory that his childhood would not be stunted if he didn't see the movies, and he was never asking to see them either. We read the Star Wars books first because he wanted to see those movies and doing that helped. There is really no harm in waiting and I think it does get more tolerable for them. At least it did for mine.

DeHe

It is family legend that my brother and I had to be carried screaming out of the theater ten minutes into our first movie - 101 Dalmatians. (They were going to make coats out of the puppies!) We didn't get to see another movie in the theater for several years, and this was before VCRs, so we just didn't get to see movies. We both turned out fine.

totally agree with DeHe - no harm in waiting!

but... if you can get hold of a book that tells the story and read it first, that might help. of course, this is how we wound up with a kid who had watched (and LOVED) all 8 HP movies multiple times before the age of 5 - yet still gets very emotional about Miss Piggy physically and psychologically abusing Kermit.

My child was inconsolable and heartbroken and sobbing at 5 when his grandparents took him to watch the Disney movie "Brave" for the first time in a theater - after a point, he got up and started walking in the dark towards the exit sign by himself because the bad guy (a bear) was being "rude, hurtful and abusive" to the mother bear in the movie. He has always been ultra sensitive - he cried when trains had accidents in his favorite Thomas the tank engine DVDs when he was 2 and 3. We don't do movies. We don't do screen time at all at our house. Our pediatrician told us that his insomnia was related to too much stimulation and emotional stress from watching any kind of video/screen based content - so out went all TV shows and movies.
We are OK with the so called "cultural gap" - he is a misfit amongst his Disney driven friends - but he also does not fit in with his buddies who watch violent cartoons either.
What we tell ourselves is that he has a whole different set of experiences in life that his friends who watch movies and TV shows do not experience - we do a lot of outdoorsy activities and field trips instead of movies.
And we take DS to Disneyland to see the characters he knows nothing about - but it is all good because he enjoys the rides and the excitement of meeting the characters - his favorite was Winnie the Pooh and Piglet last year!

Ds6 is scared of things that most kids aren't - although he isn't upset by the troll in Dora. But unlike most of you I don't think most of the Disney movies are that suitable for little kids. A friend of ds6 brought the incredibles to a sleepover and even if ds6 had been coping I would have turned it off after 10 minutes, finding Nemo is more suited to 10 and up imo. My kids do have a gap in they have never been to the movies but I am ok with that and if they want to talk to their friends about movies we can always get a book.

Ds6 is scared of things that most kids aren't - although he isn't upset by the troll in Dora any more! But unlike most of you I don't think most of the Disney movies are that suitable for little kids. A friend of ds6 brought the incredibles to a sleepover and even if ds6 had been coping I would have turned it off after 10 minutes, finding Nemo is more suited to 10 and up imo. My kids do have a gap in they have never been to the movies but I am ok with that and if they want to talk to their friends about movies we can always get a book.

My brother always used to have similar problems- and still occasionally does. It's interesting, because we had the same problem with "Brave." We had rented it online and were watching it together when he burst into tears and hid under the coffee table.

I wouldn't worry about any of this. I know I used to have similar problems, but I now enjoy all kinds of movies without any issues.

My son loves the Muppets. I just hate that part of Piggy's character and trying to explain it! Ugh. It is also terrible that we crack up at Statler and Waldorf when really they are just mean. He doesn't seem upset but rather matter-of-fact and at least seems to get that Piggy is not one to emulate.

ha, deacongirl - we love the Muppets over here, too. it's lucky that most of the really mean ones are such obvious caricatures (which makes it so easy to laugh along with Statler & Waldorf!)

i think the Piggy/Kermit dynamic is so disturbing to DD5 because she thinks the audience is supposed to want them to be together, like we cheer for Ron & Hermione in Harry Potter, but in her gut she knows Piggy is a bad egg. i think she's mad at Jim Henson?

DD8 did NOT cheer for Ron and Hermione, because she highly identifies with Hermione, and she's not very impressed with Ron.

haha - but Ron grows so much!
but good for your DD, Dude - that bodes very, very well for her future choices.

From a few years further down the road I will say that in our case things did get better, but there are still some struggles. Where possible we let them lead the way and they tackled what we and they thought they could handle. We tried to make sure that we had an easy out if either one got overwhelmed. We paused movies and went back to them. We would cover eyes and ears through the parts that bothered them and then uncover when everything was OK. We pre-srceened nearly everything when we could but that gets more difficult over time.

Both my kids (DD11 and DS9) were like this. In addition to the emotional aspects of the story, DD11 was utterly overwhelmed by the whole theater experience. Going to see Frozen a few weeks ago was the first time I've seen her really enjoy a movie in the theater. We don't even attempt 3D.

I remember having to take her out a daycare situation at about 3 years old. They had the kids watching Disney movies in the morning while eating breakfast. I usually dropped her off before the TV was turned on so didn't realize what was happening. One day I had to run home for something and came back to find my DD(then 3) sitting at the table bawling her eyes out, while a Disney movie was on the DVD player. She was scared by the characters and the story but the teachers simply couldn't understand why she was so upset - all the other kids were fine! I pulled her out then and there. Both of my kids still climb into my lap and cover their eyes during the scary or overwhelming parts of movies we watch at home.

For DD11 it even applies to some reading. She put HP Book 5 down with about 30-50 pages to go (I think about when an important character died) - finally picked it back up a week or two later and finished it, but then had no interest in the remaining books for almost 2 years. Finally read both this past summer.

The demands of school are creeping in. Previous years we got permission from teachers for her to leave the room during oral reading of parts of books like Stone Fox and Land Remembered, because she found them overwhelming. That requires knowing ahead of time what the lesson plans are, because most teachers don't see a problem.

Now I can't seem to plan ahead, so we deal with the fallout after the fact. They read Poe last year in class and she had nightmares for a week. She attended a play presentation this year as part of her Language Arts class (7th grade) which included several Poe short stories as well as "The Monkey's Paw". Although she made it through the performance, the nightmares were back for several days and she could not remotely cope with the homework assignment to summarize and describe the plays, so we skipped it.

The conflict themes in higher grade level reading requirements are becoming a problem. She recently had to do a book report that was required to be at least a 7.5 grade reading level. Finding a book at that reading level with a manageble level and type of conflict was something of a challenge. Finally settled on The Incredible Journey after I promised her that none of the main characters died (and she remembered having seen the recent Disney version of the movie Homeward Bound).

Letting the kids lead and have control over what they watch and read has been our biggest success. Having them know there is no pressure and they can bail at any time and come back or not gives them control. Pre-screeing and being able to provide assurance of at least the general outcome (while leaving out as many details as possible) lets them trust you and the movie that 'everyting will be OK'. I do have to say that we may have taken this part a little too far as DD11 is now quite cynical about the 'happy ending' in nearly all age-appropriate movies. The 'have to do it' stuff for school is quite another story and has only served to reinforce my belief that letting the kids figure it out at their own pace is what works best.

DS9 has pretty much grown out of it - he is still quite sensitive, but seems to process it differently. I think the boy peer pressure thing is starting to kick in, because the response at school or in public can be very different from the one at home.

Good luck!

I would be be pretty horrified if my kid was watching movies that upset her during breakfast! I would be almost as upset though if the movies weren't upsetting them. I removed my kid at 4 months from a home based cater because the tv was on every time I was there - only as background but I don't think it is appropriate. There were other reasons but that was the main one.

Ds6 has had a bit of a problem with read alouds at school though this year. He edges closer and closer to the teacher until he is almost on his lap. The teacher thinks he is just engrossed (he is) but misses when it is more and makes him sit on his own mat for story time. I haven't done anything because I didn't find out until nearly the end of the year and none of the stories have been frightening enough to cause problems afterwards.

My DS14 was very sensitive to specific things when he was younger but not to my memory for Disney films. But it possible he never really watched them. He preferred TV shows about animals and science. He would not, and still won't have anything to do with Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. We never forced him, and he even made a deal with his 2nd teacher once about being allowed to leave the room when the teacher read it out loud. This resulted in a massive tantrum once when because of change in schedule, he thought the teacher had forgotten.

Time & maturity will help. There really is no need to watch Disney movies but if you really feel she will understand her peers better you could try her borrowing some Disney books that describe the plot. While I abhor these books because they are usually very badly written, I could see them being useful in this instance. It's easier not to get so emotional when reading it than watching it on T.V. Once you know the princess is going to have a happily ever after it might be easier to watch the tension. Even if she doesn't watch the movies, reading the books might help her communicate with the peers that are wild about them.

I suspect that the reason for this being common in GT kids is that of most of these movies just go over most preschool kids heads.

I know of two nt kids that are dd's age who also cry/get scared while watching some Disney movies. I think the difference is what triggers the emotions. My (limited) observation is that the nt kids cry at the obviously bad stuff whereas dd cries for even the subtle and covertly bad things, and many times in anticipation of the bad thing even before it happens.

Thanks for the advice and all of the suggestions! I'm fine with waiting or never watching these movies if she doesn't want to watch them. Cricket3 I will definitely check out "the snowman" and "the bear".

Offering her the book versions first is such a great suggestion. Now that I think about it, she does seem to handle literature a bit better.

Lovemydd: I totally agree. DD doesn't just cry at the obviously bad stuff. It's often the subtle tension building or the ominous feeling that something bad is about to happen. She does not like duplicitous characters.

On the subject of the cultural gap/being misfits - that basically describes our entire family. We are definitely the oddballs of our community and so far kindergarten. Oh well, DH and I embrace it, so hopefully DD will see it as a positive as well.

Funnily enough, we just received an invitation to an "Ariel" party yesterday. I'll have to explain to DD that she's the one with the red hair and check out some Hans Christian Anderson.

Thanks again for the help.