Why I’m Not Letting My Son Ride Roller Coasters Yet—and What Helped Me Decide
The line was longer than I expected for a Tuesday afternoon in June. My son Jack stood on his tiptoes, craning his neck toward the corkscrew loop of the Dragon’s Fury, his hand wrapped around the metal chain that separated our spot in the queue from the next. “Mom, look! It goes upside down twice. Twice!” He turned to me with the kind of wide-eyed excitement that made it hard to remember he still cried during fireworks displays.
I smiled and nodded. Then I looked up at the ride’s warning sign: May cause nausea, dizziness, or motion sickness. My stomach tightened.
Jack is eight. He’s tall for his age, so he passed the height marker with plenty of room to spare. But height has never been the issue. The issue is that Jack feels things differently. He’s the kid who can hear a mosquito from two rooms away, who pulls off his socks because the seams “hurt,” who once got dizzy from swinging too high at the park and refused to go near the swings for a month. His body registers sensations in a way that most ride warnings don’t account for.
“Are we getting on?” he asked, tugging my sleeve. Behind us, a teenager in a tie-dye shirt huffed loudly enough to make his point.
I told Jack I needed a minute. He did that thing he does when he’s trying to be patient—tapping his right foot in a rhythm that matches whatever song is stuck in his head. I squatted down to his level. “If we go on this, your body might feel weird. Remember the last time you went on the teacups?”
He looked away. “I didn’t throw up.”
“No, but you said your ears felt funny and you slept for two hours in the car. That’s what I mean.”
“That was the teacups. This is different.”
He wasn’t wrong. But he also wasn’t the kind of kid who can just experience a wild ride and shake it off. When Jack’s nervous system gets overloaded, it doesn’t bounce back quickly. It lingers. That meant a two-hour car ride home with him curled into a ball, nauseated and guilt-ridden because he ruined everyone’s fun, even though he never ruined anything.
We stepped out of the line. He didn’t cry, but his shoulders slumped. “You never let me do anything.”
That hurt more than I expected. I bought him a lemonade and we sat on a bench near the carousel. For a while, we watched the Dragon’s Fury cars climb that first slow hill, pause at the top, and then vanish into a blur of screams and laughter.
I’ve replayed that moment a lot since. I’ve asked myself: Am I wrong for not wanting my son on roller coasters? Is this overprotection, or is this paying attention?
Here’s what I’ve settled on so far.
There’s a difference between protecting a child and avoiding their difficult feelings. I’m not worried about Jack falling out of a coaster. I’m not even worried about him crying on the ride. I’m worried about what happens after—the headache, the stomachache, the kind of sensory hangover that lasts for hours and drains every bit of joy from the day. When I think about it that way, saying no isn’t about being anxious. It’s about knowing my son’s body works differently than other kids’.
That distinction matters, because kids like Jack get told “just try it” a lot. Well-meaning friends and family members say it. Teachers say it during gym class. Even I say it sometimes, usually when I’m tired and don’t want to argue. But for a child with sensory processing sensitivities, “just try it” can mean “ignore your body’s alarm system and pay for it later.” That’s not a lesson I want to teach.
What I’ve learned is to pay attention to specific signs before deciding whether a ride is okay. With Jack, I look at how his nervous system has been overall that day. Has he been fine with loud noises? Can his body tolerate a bumpy car ride? Does he still complain that his socks are too tight? If the small stuff is already overwhelming him, a roller coaster is a bad idea. When he’s in a good place, I offer smaller versions of big rides—the train that goes around the park, the Ferris wheel, the log flume with its one small drop. Each success builds trust, but each failure sets us back, so I try not to push.
I also started giving Jack language for what he’s feeling. Before we go to any amusement park, I tell him, “You can say ‘my body is telling me no’ and I’ll believe you.” He tested it once last spring. We were in line for a spinning ride and he went quiet, then said the phrase. We left. No lecture, no “are you sure?” Just a high five for telling me. That single experience has done more for his confidence than any ride could have.
But I’d be lying if I said I was completely confident in my approach. There are moments—like watching Jack’s cousins pile onto a coaster while he stays behind with a slushie—when I wonder if I’m coddling him. If he’ll look back someday and see a mother who was too scared. If he’ll blame me for the things he missed.
Maybe that’s part of parenting. We don’t get to know what version of our decisions will look like from the other side of childhood. All I know is that Jack still asks to go to the amusement park. He still gets excited about the Dragon’s Fury, even though he knows I’ll probably say no. Last weekend, he said, “When I’m ten, maybe I’ll be ready. My ears will be stronger.” I didn’t correct him. I just said, “Maybe you will.”
We left the park that day without going on any rides. He ate his lemonade, watched the carousel for a while, and then asked if we could get pizza on the way home. I said yes. In the car, he fell asleep with his head against the window, mouth slightly open, the day bright but gentle.
I still don’t know if I’m wrong. I suspect the answer will keep shifting as he grows. For now, I’m okay with that uncertainty. I’m okay with being the parent who pulls him out of line, who buys the lemonade, who lets another summer go by without hearing him laugh on a coaster. Because I’m also the parent who gets to see him wake up the next morning without a stomachache, ready to try something small again.
And maybe that’s enough.
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