First of all I should say that I’m not knocking parenting skills here. I’m a mom with 2 preschoolers, one of which has Aspergers and so I’m all too familiar with kids who need to express emotions, get tired of waiting, need to move about etc, it’s all part of the parenting package to have to deal with that kind of behavior from time to time. Having said that, the one place that I’ve yet to see kids have a meltdown is in a Disney park.
On my first trip to Disney World I was a single person in my late 20s. I was a little old to be having the time of my life in the Magic Kingdom, but loving it all the same. When I first entered the park and saw the amount of people there, looked at how many attractions there were, how many young children, and made a rough guess how long I was going to wait in line for any of the rides, I wondered about how stressful it was going to be given that the kids would be waiting the same length of time. I needn’t have got myself concerned about it though because it wasn’t a problem!
It was like something from that movie, the “Stepford Wives”, only with children instead of wives. Despite the heat, despite the length of the queues, not one child acted out. Not one of them whined. Not one of them felt the need to meltdown and make their parents uncomfortable. Instead, they just stood there as if mesmerized by the experience. As someone who didn’t have children at that point, but had witnessed enough check-out meltdowns to expect the worst in this situation, I was amazed!
There must be some kind of magic in that Disney air, because all I’ve ever seen within its gates are excited and happy children, with not a whine hanging on the air – pity they can’t capture and package it to sell!
How to Make your Child Whine Free
Six Universal Rules of Discipline
Taming Tantrums Take your Child on a Dry Run