Is my 3.5 year old daughter too young to sit through Ovo Cirque DuSoleil?

How is she for sitting still for an extended period of time? Are you planning on going to a matinee?

yes the 1:00 show. She’s pretty good if she’s interested (which she is in bugs and things)

She is a little young, but I think if she is good at sitting still when interested that most likely she will do just fine with having to sit for the show. The question about her being scared is a diffierent thing altogether. Some kids get freaked by clowns and costumes, has she ever been nervous around people wearing costume? If you have already bought the tickets I would not give it a second thought. What’s the worst that will happen? You’ll have to leave early? Don’t worry about it.

Generally, I think it is good to start taking children to shows around the age of 5 because then they can retain some memory of it. More to do with bang for my buck though.

Ages 5 – 7 is a pretty good age to make an event out of going to live matinee performances. Go to lunch, get dressed up, make it special. Ages 11 – 12 is a good starting point for night time performances.

Their shows do take some level of intellectual comprehension. I can’t speculate about your daughter, but I wouldn’t have taken my kids before the age of about 7. This is not to say that I knew they wouldn’t enjoy it but that I couldn’t be sure they would. What I did know for sure was that I didn’t want to have to leave early because of a restless and cranky youngster.

Cirques tend to be long. The 3 year olds I know couldn’t handle it. You don’t want to have to leave because she’s lost interest, and the people around you certainly don’t want to be disturbed by a kid talking and fidgeting. You know your kid best though.

She’ll like it for like 10 minutes and then (I’m judging my by 3.5 year old) you’ll spend the rest of the time trying to keep her from leaving or playing loudly or whatever

When my youngest daughter was about 3½ or 4 I took her to the third Lord of the Rings movie. She not only sat all the way through it, she was riveted. It’s still her favorite. She especially liked the giant spider, perhaps in the way we like vampires. They’re terrifying, but in a delicious way. We LOVE to be terrified.
The only circus I’ve ever allowed my kids to see is Cirque duSoleil. They can deal with animal cruelty when they grow up, I won’t promote it to them as though it were ok. Take her to the matinee. If she gets fussy, just get up and leave. It won’t be the end of the world. You can always take her the next time… Good luck!

My son started sitting through movies as well as live shows when he was two, but never could sit through a circus. The clowns always scared him too much. He also still cannot tolerate airplane flights longer than about 30 minutes.

My daughter, OTOH, couldn’t sit still in a movie until she was about six, but did much better in live shows because she could see that they were real people.

However, every child is different. I would be prepared to up and leave when she begins to show signs of being bored, restive, or scared.

Thanks for all the thoughts everybody. Given everybody’s thoughts and input, I’m think I’m going not bring her this year (but go myself and enjoy it).