Traumatising kids with Disney movies 

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So last weekend it was a rainy weekend and I decided that we’d seen enough princess movies and it was time to watch The Lion King with my eldest Rhubarb 😊 now we’d read the book and whilst I know she’s a sensitive little soul at 3.5 I thought she could handle the fact that mufasa dies – how wrong could I be!!!

Cue the scene where he dies and she sobs, I thought that might happen – but what I didn’t expect was the questions through the rest of the movie ‘why did his daddy die’ ‘is his daddy coming back’ ‘how is the daddy talking to him from the sky’ she continued to cry after the movie and I thought that I’d honestly traumatised her for life…

The subject of death comes up quite often in Disney movies and she usually doesn’t question it, so I’m not sure what it was about The Lion King that affected her so…did this movie affect any other little ones?! 

5 thoughts on “Traumatising kids with Disney movies ”

  1. vickitucklee

    We haven’t done lion king yet, but all Disney movies have bad stuff – death of parents is a big one, evil/bad people, sneakiness. It always results in a string of questions that need to end with – it’s just pretend…
    Try Studio Ghibli – Totoro and Ponyo are my starting suggestions for a 3 year old. They are much more toddler friendly and nature focused.
    Whilst death is a fact of life, it doesn’t need to be a part of every day life.

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    1. aussiechefwidow Post author

      Thanks for the suggestion, I haven’t heard of that before so I’ll definitely check it out! Yeah she doesn’t understand death, which is fair enough she’s only 3.5 and I don’t want to try and explain it to her just yet x

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      1. vickitucklee

        Yes mine is also 3.5. She’s still getting the hang of dead leaves and plants. Dead Mummys and Daddys seems a bit much to expect a 3 year old to take in her stride. It’s a shame, because we expect that Disney is something a 3 year old should be able to watch.

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  2. yespeasmumma

    It affected me, and I am 34!! Nah ;). I think it is hard for little kids to watch those movies when there is sadness, but I think it helps them realise some bad things (in a nice kind of way?). Questions are good though. It means they are learning and trying to understand.

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