I Want My Kids to Forget "Cars 2" -- Doable??

Kate:

I think the more you don't like something - the more they will want it. If you take away the stuff - poof! it's not gone from their minds. This too will fade off for them...it will be a phase...

I have not seen Cars 2 so I can't comment on it.

However, I do know the more noise you make about the comments and toys? The more they will be attracted to it. Just let it fade. When they say a quote from the movie - ignore it. It's not easy - but if you stop giving it attention, they will start losing interest.

It's okay!! You can do this mama!

replace with a new obsession. put all the stuff away and hype something new. Veggie tales maybe?

You can try it, but I don't know if it will work. My son became obsessed with Ghostbusters when he was 4. Like the Back to the Future obsession, we had nothing "Ghostbusters" available. Shoe boxes turned into ghost traps and army men became Peter Venkman. For a long time a green pillow was Slimer. So even without the toys and not watching the movie, he obsessed. Slowly over time he got a few toys and items found here or there and now he still LOVES Ghostbusters and wears his Stay Puft hat proudly, but it's not an all consuming obsession any more. Inappropriate comments would not be allowed, but I'd probably just ignore as much of it as I can. Give it some time, and this too shall pass.

Yeah, distract them with other things/movies/characters. This is one reason we don't go overboard with buying licensed toys and junk in the first place.

Are your kids doing anything other than ignoring their other toys? I mean, are they doing anything inappropriate?

My son has a crazy obsession with Back to the Future. I mean, he wants to be Marty, dress like Marty, learn to ride a skateboard. It's really annoying (especially since he wants to tight roll his pants!). We tried distracting him. We tried encouraging him to do other things. He will play other games and do other things, but we haven't been able to change the fact that this is something he likes and is going to continue being interested in.

I'm just not sure hiding the Cars 2 toys is going to achieve the desired result. It really could make them mad and just want to play Cars 2 even more and even without the toys. Might be better to just not make a big deal about it but make a big deal about other things.

Rather than taking all the Cars stuff away completely and all at once, I'd make the items disappear slowly over a couple weeks so they are less likely to notice. Then one day, viola!, no more Cars things.

I don't mind the Cars obsession except when it comes to books. Cars themed books are terribly written and some don't even make sense. So I refuse to buy those anymore and "misplace" the ones we have bought. But my son is 3 and carries his "cars with eyes" everywhere. He bathes them, dries them, counts them, makes them talk to each other, organizes them by color, etc. I feel like he is still being creative with the Cars toys, even if they are heavily branded. We went through the same thing with Monsters versus Aliens and one day it just switched to something else.

Our boy became obsessed with Ghost Rider, yes the movie with Nicholas Cage. I don't even remember how he came to see it but the evil part of it went directly over his head. I think the kids probably don't remember the parts you are talking about. Ours loved it and if I ask them questions they can't tell me anything about that stuff. I think the more you focus on wanting to take it away the more they will want to hold on to it.

They didn't experience the same movie you did. They don't get all the back stuff that was put in to make this movie more appealing to older kids and people. They just saw their buddy Lightening McQueen and Mator have an adventure.

put the cars 2 stuff away and get some of the older disney movies to watch. peter pan, cinderella, bambi or my kids favorites the rescuers and rescuers down under. etc. my grandson loved the cars movie. he is 7 when the second one came out the day after his birthday of course they took him right away to see it. my grandson didn't care for it much but my son in law (33) loved it. definitely for an older audience

My son had an issue with "play shooting" his sister temporarily.. so I told him I was taking away every movie that had any violence including spiderman, ninja turtles, etc.. and then my son says "so are you taking away cars 2 because they use guns in it?"... THEN it hit me about that movie and I was like "oh yeah!"... Just try discouraging the constant cars 2 phrases, and maybe putting that themed stuff away may help.. I as well was disappointed in the content of that movie :(

I agree that Cars 2 is a lot different than the first one. We saw it for the first time the other night. My 6 yr old thought it was cool, but it didn't seem to have a major effect on him. He's hardly talked about it since then.

I think they will get over it if you put all the stuff away. Tell them they are not allowed to say those phrases, and try to get them into something else.