Every situation is different, J it seems as though he was born with the passion. That’s different. Pushy stage Mommy’s make my skin crawl.

Me, I am looking forward to baseball, swim meets, and soccer if that is the way my son wants to go. I will give him every opportunity to decide what he likes and is good at and has passion for. From there, we go forward.

Ricky

That’s a must-read for parents ushering their kids into modeling.

Acting and dancing are more clear-cut. You can tell pretty easily if your kid has a passion and talent for any area of the arts. (Posing, an art? Not so much, though some extraordinary models almost turn it into one.) You can tell if your kid would rather play on the beach than be on stage. Mine would rather be no other place than on stage, performing. Of course the performing part is the prize. To reach it, you need to do the work—and the auditions. Plenty of swimmers must grow bored of those 5 AM training sessions, but winning the race at the big meet makes it all worth it. Advice for acting parents: A management company will be more selective than an agency about what auditions your kid is sent on. If a casting director specifically asks for your kid, the job will be great career-wise, or will pay really well, then you get the call. This translates into a few auditions a month for my 9-year-old during the school year. There weren’t any in the summer—that’s slow season. The “print” castings (which means modeling) are always optional. We skip most of those. Print castings are more likely to be mobbed with kids, with half-hour waits. (Actually not bad compared to what adult models deal with!) With acting auditions, kids are given specific times, so wait time is minimal. But then you have to consider travel time. We have an hour train-ride, which is good for homework and prep on the way in, but J flops around like a dying fish on the way home. He is not the type of kid who could do this every day (I hear of kids in New York who do, every day after school!). He needs to run around with his friends. He’s down to two hours of dance during the week and a half-hour voice class every other week—that’s not the kind of drive that will take a kid to Broadway. Another kid in our town has had a long run on Broadway. As a dance instructor described him, “He is like an adult in a kid’s body. He was made for it. He doesn’t need or want to be running around with friends. He wants to be hanging out backstage with actors.” So, it’s up to the parents to decipher whether that is their kid, or that is who they are trying to make their kid be. And then there’s the opposite dilemma. My neighbor’s teenage daughter is dying to act in New York. Her mom is resisting because she doesn’t want her kid zeroing in on an acting career and letting her school work slip. I’m sure you’ve heard the rule, Only act if you MUST act! Writing is similar. I write because I must write. Which means a blog comment becomes blog-post length!