How Do You Help Your Child Actor Handle Rejection?

How to handle rejection for the child actor. 

First of all, hopefully, your child, or even you (because both children and adult actors can benefit from my advice) are in this industry because you love it and want to have fun.

Let’s say your child has a callback, you have a callback, keep it fun. If you keep it fun and light and not get so serious about it, it’s gonna be a lot better because if you have fun, the casting director, and other industry professionals, are going to have fun as well. Even if it’s a dramatic role.

You want to tell your child that he’s not gonna get every single role for sure. You may want to say, “We’re going to these auditions because you get to act.” And that’s what your child wants to do – ACT! It’s like, basically they pay you to just run around Los Angeles or send in a bunch of self-submission tapes, but when you actually get on set and get to act – I mean you don’t have to pay me for that. The acting jobs pay you for all of the auditions and all of the car and driving around.

Acknowledge your child’s feelings.

Number two, I think would be to definitely acknowledge your child’s feelings. It’s really important that if your child says, “Oh, Mom, I didn’t get it,” you just repeat what they expressed right back to them. Try saying, “Oh, honey, you sound upset that you didn’t get it.” Acknowledging those feelings! I’ll tell you, children will just move forward. So you just say, “Yeah, honey, I’m sorry you didn’t get it,” and, then divert their attention “Do you want to go for ice cream? Pizza? Maybe Chuck E. Cheese?”

Remember, your children are out there working and earning some positive rewards helps keep them working hard. It’s basically just saying, “Look, you’re doing a good job out there,” and, you know, “Let’s Keep Going!”