Biggest Dino Fan. Until the Roar.

Ben's POV

Finally! The museum! Mummy and Daddy said there will be dinosaurs. Big ones! I hold their hands and jump, jump, jump through the door.

I take Rex out. Rex is my dinosaur. He was in my pocket. He is green and has small arms and a big mouth. He has to see everything, too.

The first room has eggs. Big eggs. Some are open, and inside, there are dinosaurs. I like the green ones. I crouch down to look. I hold Rex next to the glass. Rex is bigger. I am proud of Rex.

Then we go to the next room. There! There are big dinosaurs!

But — wait.

They have holes everywhere. All of them. I look at Rex. Rex doesn't have holes. I look up at the big one again.

"Why they have holes?"

"These are not holes. These are bones," Mummy says.

"What about the rest?"

"The rest of the dinosaur is gone."

I want to ask more — where did it go, why is it gone — but Daddy picks me up. "Come, see closer."

He holds me up near the dinosaur's head. It is very big. Big teeth. Big eye holes. But the eyes are not there.

"Daddy, why it has no eyes? It cannot see."

"These are skeletons," Daddy says. "Only the bones are left."

I look at the skeleton. It cannot look back. I think about this.

We walk more. The skeletons get bigger. One has a very long neck, all the way to the ceiling. I like it. Big is good.

Then we go through another door.

This room is darker. And there is a dinosaur at the end. It is not a skeleton.

It has no holes. It is brown and bumpy. It is very big. It has teeth. It has eyes.

It is looking at me.

I stop.

Its head moves toward me.

And it roars.

The sound goes everywhere — into my chest, into my ears, into my legs. I don't know what happens next, but I am crying, and Daddy has me, and we are going back through the door.

Outside, it is bright. I can hear other children. Daddy holds me. Mommy says something about a big toy, but I cannot hear. I cry.

"It is a big toy," Daddy says. "And it's a very scary, roaring, loud toy. And Ben doesn't like it."

Yes! YES, I don't like it!

Mummy also says it was loud and scary. They heard it, too.

I cry a little less. Not much. But a little.

I have Rex in my hand. I hold him very tight.

Tina's POV

For two weeks, it was all dinosaurs.

At breakfast. In the bath. Before sleep. Dinosaurs are big, Mummy. Dinosaurs are very big. I know, sweetheart. How big? Very big. Bigger than Daddy? Much bigger than Daddy.

So here we are. The dinosaur museum.

He holds our hands through the entrance, jumping between us, Rex already out and ready. I smile at Dean over his head.

An egg stops him first. He crouches down, holds Rex up to the glass. The hatching ones are smaller. Rex is clearly superior. Ben is very pleased about this. I watch him and say nothing.

Then the skeletons.

He looks at them, looks at Rex, looks back. "Why they have holes?"

I explain about bones, about the rest being gone. He starts to ask something else but Dean scoops him up and holds him up near the skull. Ben studies the empty eye sockets.

"It cannot see."

No, it cannot. Just bones.

Ben thinks about this. I can see him filing it away somewhere.

We move through the hall. He warms up again — the long-neck skeleton gets an approving look.

Then, the next room.

I see the animatronic before Ben does. Big, textured, detailed — actually impressive. I lean over to Dean. "That looks cool."

Then the head moves. Then the roar.

Ben screams. Dean already has him and we are moving back through the door.

Outside, Ben is crying hard. Dean holds him, says his name quietly, lets him go.

"It's just a big toy," I say.

Dean looks at me, then at Ben still crying against his shoulder.

"It is a big toy," he says. "And it's a very scary, roaring, loud toy. And Ben doesn't like it."

"YES!" Ben shouts, into Dean's neck, still crying.

I close my mouth. Dean's right. I join in: "It was very loud. That would scare anyone."

Ben still cries and squeezes his ultimate predator toy in his tiny hands..

Inspired by

Research on toddler fear and the reality-imagination boundary

My takeaway: at this age, the brain doesn't reliably distinguish between a threat and something that looks and sounds like a threat. The animatronic moved. It roared. Every alarm in Ben's nervous system fired as it should. The fear response worked perfectly.

This is why "it's just a toy" lands nowhere. Ben's body already decided. Logic arrives too late to the party.

What Dean does — naming the fear without minimising it — helps. It is scary. It is loud. Ben doesn't like it. Three true sentences. That's enough to start calming the nervous system down.

What to do (or: what I'd aim to do in the ideal world ;) )

• Don't minimise. "It's just a toy" or "it's not real" skips over the feeling entirely. The fear is real even if the threat isn't.
• Name it plainly. "That was very loud and it scared you." Simple, true, no fixing required.
• Don't push them back in. The goal isn't to prove it's safe. Let them come back to the scary thing on their own terms.
• Follow their lead. Ben went straight back to Rex. The love for dinosaurs and the fear of that one thing can co-exist.

Have you ever watched your toddler flip from excited about something to terrified about it? Tell me in the comments.

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Photo by Hasibul Hasan on Unsplash