Toddler with "Disney Cars" Obsession:)

Hi Carla,
Let me just first say that it is nice to see that my son is normal and is doing things that other kids his age are doing. About the same time, 20 months my son became obsessed with Mickey Mouse. We have a DVR and would record it for him so he had a variety. I think its totally normal. My son is 26 months now and has backed off. Although I can't tell you why it is normal, all I can say is don't try and take it away from him. He has found something that tickles his fancy so to speak. And the other toys will come in time. I think its great you are incorporating learning into what he is interested in. I think that is the best way for them to learn. Also watching TV is not so bad. They are speaking on the cartoon so maybe that will help him as well. I think you are doing good. Just don;t let him watch TV 24/7 and I think he will be fine. Hioe this helps.

I know what you mean.. I have 5yr twins and a 22mo and we have 4 large containers of cars. My car even has cars in it. The twins were more into them yrs ago as they have been getting older I find there not to interested in them now, but the bigger they get the most expensive they get for cars... lol!!! Now my twins tell me they love Mustangs that they are wanting to buy one for me.. It's cute, and I found that since my kids are so into cars my husband teaches them about cars every chance he gets so they are able to learn at the same time colors, models, and every little thing to do with cars... Best of luck

HI Carla,

My son was the same way. Reading what you wrote, I couldn't have put it any better myself. That was my son to a T. He is now 4 and his 1st Birthday was The Disney Cars theme. That was all he wanted. I even have family members checking all the stores whenever they go to see if there is a new one that came out. Yes, they do grow out of it. We have all of them and now he plays with them every once in awhile. I also have a 22 month old and he plays with them all the time. Not as obsessed with them like his brother. Don't worry let him be a boy and enjoy it. They grow up too fast.

This is the first of many obsessions to come. It is normal, don't worry. My son is into this movie now and it is all he watches. He has about 30 thomas the train characters and he always has one of them in his hand. The games you are playing are great, anything that works! My son is at school all day, but if he was home, I would just slowly work on limiting TV. Don't do anything drastic, slow and steady is always best. Do limit it before he gets older because I can tell you all about the tantrums associated with it!!

HI carla your little sounds fine to me .Little boys love cars and trucks. when he is older you might find worms and frog in his pockets boy are boy. If you are not giveing him cars because he's haveing fit then it's okay. Be happy you have somthing he likes. You sound like a wounderful mom. and he sounds like a fun little guy have fun with him and know that you are doing a good job.

My son loved cars, then Rudolph and Santa for a year when he was two. He designated certain colored blocks as the Rudolph guys and dressed as Santa with beads as his beard and stuffed pillowcases with toys. He watched the movie and played the part of Yukon. We bought him the figures and my husband carved sleighs for him. He moved on to batman, superman, spiderman, cowboys , and Indians. He is very driven and we like to help him feed his passion for imagination and learning. He is now nine and passionate about Indianlore, he has a bow and arrow and loves reading about Indians and going to festivals. He will sit for hours and listen to Indian stories and retain the knowledge. You are very fortunate to have a child with great passion. Follow his dreams. It's fun to help him acquire his knowledge and see him grow and learn. I've forgotten how long we've been doing this. So glad he is still our imaginative little boy. My suggestion: Read to him daily , especially at bed time. Don't push him into learning or performing for you. He will back away, my son did. He is a good reader now. Your son is young let him play. He will learn to talk and will learn his letters when he is ready. Allow him to discover them when he wants to. Pushing only pushes them away. I was an over eager Mom with the learning bit for my first born and found it is better to follow their lead and not push them into what results I wanted.

I couldn't help but smile when I read your request. When our boys were toddlers they LOVED anything with wheels. We bought them the Tonka Trucks [which we still have, by the way!]and the matchbox cars as they got older. They both still have those matchbox cars too! - My point is, don't sweat it. What you are doing asking him about the colors, the sizes, the quantities - you are teaching him in terms he understands. And he IS learning! For us, most of those electronic toys didn't work until they were at least 3 or 4, they just weren't interested at an earlier age. So we put them away and tried them again later when they showed an interest in them. I wouldn't worry about him taking the cars everywhere he goes. These are his "lovies" and he enjoys them. Just like having a favorite shirt you wear, he has his cars.

One thing I would do is introduce other toys. We introduced the toddler legos to our boys and got on the floor with them and built tunnels for the cars to go thru. When they saw this was as much fun as playing with the cars they started building their own tunnels. The toddler legos are large enough for their small hands to make simple tunnels.

Whatever you do, enjoy the journey! They really do grow up quick! :)

It's totally normal what your son is doing. My son is now 4 years old and was obsessed with the Disney cars and the movie also. We also bought all of the cars we could find and now my son has well over 50 of them as well as all the playsets, bigger cars, and even toddler bedding. My son will even grab the cars that are on the movie at the time and pretend with them as the movie plays. Don't worry it will not delay your son. It happens a lot and pretty much every new movie we get my son wants to watch over and over again until he gets something new and then he will become attatched to that. It's a boy thing, they like to hoard objects. It also doesn't help that new "cars" are always coming out. We moms like our children to have things that interest them and that they really enjoy. Don't feel bad. I'm always searching the "cars" isle to see if there are news ones out.

Thats ok i have a 1 year old sent he was 6 month i have a lots of mustang modle i gave him a few to play with that the only thing he play with its funny we have the cars in my room and when he wake up that the frist place he gos

T.

Hey Carla this will first of many my son is almost four he into cars right now but first it was blue clue, Dora and many more he move on after a couple of months he get tired move to something differ.

I am laughin w/you as I read this. I totally know where you are coming from. My son, 2 on thurs, is OBESSED w/cars! Same thing goes for everything you wrote. His b-day is in 2 days & I got him a lot of Car's clothes & some toys. So did my mother-in-law. My husband and I have been addin different dvd's into his daily seeing. He is now watching different amounts of things. If he wants to see cars he will go vroom. My son talks a little bit, few words but knows his sounds & exactly what we are saying. I don't really know about the "learning" aspect w/watching cars. He has techinacally learned somethings from it but we know its not nearly as educational as other cartoons. I think your son will slowly grow out of it. Just try addin a new movie in. Lately we have been adding in, Ice age & Ratatouille. He seems to like but from time to time we have narrowed his cars viewing down to 1x a day or even less than that every other day. I have to tell you when I was reading this I called my husband to tell him. Of course he didn't answer.
O and the holding the toys to eat dinner & bringing them along...I know what you mean. Exaclty what my son does.
Good luck & any other questions just ask. Puts me at ease knowing my boy isn't the only one that loves cars!

J.

hi. that is completely normal. my don will be 2 next week and he did the same thing. it will pass and be something else. my son's was little einsteins, then mickey mouse, now he wants all car things. come to think of it, it's disney cars. that's his birthday theme. anyway, i wouldn't worry about it. i'm also a RN.

Hi Carla! I am a mother to five handsome grown sons ,three beautiful stepdaughters, twenty nine gorgeous granchildren and one step greatgrandbaby on the way. My oldest son will be 35 this this year was also a car nut from practically the day he was born. His first word, and I am not joking, was "car" and before he ever said anything else he said " ISN'T IT PRETTY" now he was repeating after me but it was teaching him and he as a very fast learner because he walked at 8 months old. I walked myself at 8 1/2 months old. The point is I too used the cars mostly hotwheels to help him learn his colors and the to say tire and any of the parts of the car that I knew myself. To this day he his a car fanantic mostly graphics and customizing .He was a car salesman for many years and was a customizing manager at a huge car company. He is now a Land consultant but still dabbles with online customizing, detailing and so on. He is very light on the mechanics part of it. He still prefers the to the " ISN'T IT PRETTY" end result which has made me very proud! I think you can trust that this is could be a phase or maybe one day he too will be in the cr business just be proud of what he does and encourage him and love him and you'll never regret it! Take care and God Bless! Tropical Granny

dont worry he will grow out of it. my 3 yr old was the same way. after about a week of constantly watching the movie (we only have 1 t.v.) i took it out after i put him to bed when he woke upin the morning and wanted to watch it i told him he had to pick another movie because the movie was broken( i hate lying but under the circumstance i made an exception). he cried and pouted for about 2 hours. so i took out all of his cartoon movies(except cars), put them in front of him and told him to pick one. he just stared at them for about an hour and then brought me ice age. now that hes kind of over cars we cycle through the movies. when he is done with one movie he can pick another but it CAN NOT be the one that he just watched.

Our son was also obsessed with the Cars characters. It was the second movie that he had ever seen. He was about 21/2 and already loved anything on wheels. We stopped all tv and videos at about age 9 mos, when we read that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends none until age 2 and then limited viewing at most. They are questioning the effect of quickly moving screen images on developing brains, their correlation to the increasing numbers of children with attention problems, etc.

We quickly found out how powerful tv/video and it's related marketing can be when we let down our guard and took him to see Cars at the theater. Disney and others know how to get into our children's brains. For many months afterwards, it was Lighting this and Doc that. Of course, the rest of his classmates reinforced it. We quietly stopped allowing new Cars things into the house, we stopped talking about it with him, and changed the subject. We also started replacing the Cars stuff with other better toys that encouraged creativity and movement...no bells, whistles, etc....blocks, simple trucks, cars, etc with no commercial attachment. We also stopped worrying about his learning curve, because we found out that he easily learned what he needed to when the time was right. I believe that the toy companies are selling us lots of stuff that our kids don't need by playing on our fears that our kids might get "behind". Check out the book "Einstein Didn't Use Flash Cards". We are culturally taught to push learning on our kids before they have the capacity to understand the lessons.

I know my views are not mainstream, but we've had great success with the path we've chosen. Our 41/2 year old's teacher is thrilled with his development. He's a very grounded, creative, gentle, smart, easy-going boy. Good luck!

Hi Carla,
My name is V. and I have 3 boys ages 7, 10, and 13. Don't worry. What your son is doing is perfectly normal. My boys have always had certain toys that they prefer over others. Eventually, they grow out of it and move on to something else. You are not slowing down his learning at all. A child's imagination is amazing. They are constantly learning even when they are doing something that we feel isn't necessarily structured. I think it is great that you have incorporated a learning time in with his play. My boys used to love the compare and contrast games. Have you found the "Cars" books yet? He would probably enjoy that too. He could use his cars to act out what he is hearing you read in the books, and probably eventually bring you more books to read to him.
I hope that helps!
Take care and God Bless,
V.

Hi Carla.
Sounds exactly like my 25 month old. Only difference: matchbox cars are fine and occasionally his Thomas the Tank engines and train cars. Am I worried? Not at all. I bet your Toddler knows the names of most of his little care friends...try him out! My son can tell you the difference between a Jeep, any other SUV or a minivan! He is learning his colors, numbers and now at 25 months old he talks all the time with amazing clarity. The only thing I insist upon is no toys on the dinner tray.
J. C.

I didn't even have to look to see if this was your first child.....I just knew it. Only a first time mommy would think a. Is this bad? and b. Should I worry about this?. I have three boys and a fourth on the way. They all obsess over one thing or another and will continue to for a long long time. It's healthy, normal, shows "sticktoitivness" and keeps him out of your hair (my favorite part) for hours a day. How wonderful he has found something nice to love. My youngest adores McQueen and the gang too. All in all, there is nothing to worry about. But, you're a great mom for trying to make sure your child is developing normally. Rest assured he is!

my son is the same exact way. He's been obsessed with the Cars movie for over a year and now is also in love with the helicopter from the movie. He also can't go anywhere without at least one care (there are at least 4 cars in my purse at all times lol). I'm sure it is a phase. To put a little learning into it we practice colors by "finding" the red car (etc) then we'll count the cars, make them turn left right, etc. There are suprisingly a lot of ways to lear. I'm sure he'll grow out of it. it might take a while, like i said, my oldest has been obsessed with Cars for over a year.

If you have ANY concerns at all, contact Birth to 3 at The Landings in Sarasota. They can come to your house and make sure that your son is developing properly. I'm sure everything will be fine, but it may help ease your mind. The most important thing is to be proactive. I'm very passionate about this program as it is very effective in providing help and guidance to concerned parents! Good luck and enjoy!
If you have any questions, let me know. I'd be happy to help.
H.