6 (Less Obvious) Lessons from Disney

Lesson 1: Who You Are at Disney = Who You Are

I am not patting myself on the back here, because traveling with two young kiddos, even great ones, can be exhausting and sometimes I just hit a wall. But I am grateful that the magic of Disney was not lost on me. I hope I am always as wide-eyed at the sight of Cinderella’s castle and the fireworks and the giant turkey legs as I was on this trip.

Unfortunately, that is not everyone’s Disney experience. I witnessed a boy in a stroller spill a tub of popcorn. His mom started screaming at him, threw the empty tub at him and yelled, “You f*!#@ing two-year-old!”

That’s right, he was two. I am heartbroken for a kid that has to grow up in that kind of home. The heat and exhaustion of the whole experience can bring out the worst in us if we let it. Which leads me to my next observation…

Lesson 2: Problems Are Smaller When You Anticipate Them

I expect great things in life, but the reality is that I knew my daughter would have a meltdown at some point and that a plane would be delayed. And both happened.

Knowing that and mentally preparing for both situations made them look a lot less like problems, especially since they were both out of my control.

The good news is that because I was ready to roll with the punches, they didn’t really feel much like punches. More just like an aggressive pillow fight.

Lesson 3: Good Grandparents Are the Best

Not only do they pay for things up to and including the entire trip sometimes (thanks mom and dad for keeping my retirement plan on track!), but they also take a weight off the parents’ shoulders. Especially at Disney World.

My dad played with my daughter in the lazy river for something like 36 straight hours. My mom sat in our dark hotel room while the kids slept during naptime one day just to let Alex and I have lunch together. I found out after the fact that she broke her toe stumbling around in the pitch black. What a gal, sacrificing her toe for our mid-day food indulgence.

If you are a grandparent, or even if you can have this kind of influence in someone’s life, do it. And that goes for me as well.

Lesson 4: Document the Journey

Life is short, and memories tend to fade. Don’t ever let your phone or camera get in the way of you being there for the moment. You don’t want to miss life because you are too preoccupied capturing it with an electronic device.

BUT, and this is a big “but,” my daughter has already had a blast watching videos of herself on a ride that she just did a week ago. Heck, I could sit there all day and re-watch her reaction to riding on Dumbo with me for the first time.

This is reinforcing her memory of her first Disney experience, and I will always have somewhere in the neighborhood of 46,000 photos and videos to look back on fondly. I’ll take it.

Lesson 5: Push Your Kids

We started Kennedy off on some of the classic Disney rides – Peter Pan, Dumbo, that kind of thing. But I talked her into doing a mini roller coaster (Goofy’s Barnstormer, for all you Disney fanatics out there) and she loved it.

Then I snuck onto Splash Mountain with her without explaining that we’d plunge 50 feet down a giant drop. She did not like that one bit.

Then she saw Big Thunder Mountain Railroad and wanted to try it because I told her it was exactly like Goofy’s Barnstormer. What I forgot is that this is only true in the sense that you don’t die on either ride.

Big Thunder Mountain is twice as fast, exceedingly loud, and quite dark at times. She spent the better part of the ride crying.

I was thinking about it later that night and feeling terrible, like I’d pushed her too hard. And maybe I did. But I spent the rest of the trip talking to her about how brave she was for doing Splash and Big Thunder. And I think she believes me because I heard her telling herself in the mirror a couple of days after the rides, “I am so brave.” I’ll count that as a win.

It’s like John Candy said in Home Alone, kids are resilient. Don’t be a nut or expect more from them than is appropriate, but don’t baby them either.

Lesson 6: Experiences Are Greater Than Toys

To be clear, every kid should return from Disney with at least one doll or toy. But Kennedy has spent a lot more time asking to see pictures and videos from the trip. I think, at three, she is old enough to realize that the fun she experienced far outweighed the donuts she ate, the dresses she wore, or the toys she got.

That should be a good lesson to all of us, and something worth remembering the next few months as we enter a season of giving and gratitude.

Disney is a magical place where all of your dreams can come true. It is also a place where you can learn a lot of about people, yourself included. I am grateful for the opportunity to do this trip with my family and hope you and your family get to go on this kind of adventure, too.