Picture yourself
walking into Nordstrom. You see the Tory
Burch shoe selection. You pick up a few
of the shoes, stroke them lovingly, and you decide to try a couple of pairs
on. You’re thinking, just one pair…I’ll
splurge a little bit…I’ve been so good about not spending too much money…maybe
the gold flats…or the wedge sandals…or maybe the blue ones! You try them on, all look fabulous (because this
is a hypothetical situation and you don’t have barges attached to your ankles)
and you choose the pair you’re going to buy.
The shoe salesman completes your sale and you are out the door, silver
bag in hand, ready to conquer the world in your new shoes.
You only got one
pair. But you tried on three and they
were all great…right? You chose the blue ones.
On a different day, you might have gotten the sandals. At that moment, though, the blue ones were
your favorite. My question is, and here’s
where I’m going with this, is: did you reject
the other ones?
Your answers might
vary, but I was reminded about the subject of rejection in child modeling and
acting the other day by a mom (shout out!) who was considering getting her son
into the business (in addition to her daughter) but she was concerned that her
son might be too aware of the rejection, which her younger daughter didn’t even
notice yet.
I’ve tackled the
subject of rejection in discussions with seasoned model moms and skeptical
bystanders alike. It’s part of the
business. A huge part of the
business. And unless you are one of the half
dozen or so child models I can count off the top of my head who book
constantly, you’re going to face rejection ALL.
THE. TIME. Most of it?
You won’t even know about it because your agent submitted you for
something and you didn’t get requested.
Does this kind of rejection hurt kids?
The older ones obviously know they went to a go-see and didn’t book –
how does that feel? Even for the younger
ones, the parents are aware of the rejection, and sometimes the parents take it
very personally. Is it okay to face that
rejection? I’m offering up my answer: a
resounding, YES, it’s ok and
probably actually good for kids!
If you’re not in the
business (or even if you are) think for a moment about everything your child
does (outside of modeling). Swimming,
ballet, baseball, choir, fencing, whatever.
How many times has your child been rejected? Chances are, if you have a kiddo under age 10
or so, the answer is probably…not many times.
Little kids tend not to face any rejection. End of the year class ceremonies give awards
to every child (Brightest smile! Most
colorful wardrobe!) and not just the top spellers and the best readers. EVERY snowman collage gets hung up in the
classroom, not just the ones most pleasing to the eye (and, er, accurate…what was
that one kid thinking?!?). We’ve created
this cushy, fuzzy, warm, and safety-padded world for our kids in which they
never face any real rejection unless they engage in competitive activities…and
even then…let’s just say my son puts the BEN in BENch, and he’s fifteen.
So I explained this all to a group of my
friends, and many seemed to agree. A
little rejection is good sometimes.
Learning how to handle it gracefully can be an amazing feat on the way
to building good character…and a way to gain some perspective on how the real
world works. Explaining it to kids can
also be challenging, because we still need to sugar-coat (foreshadowing!) it so
kids can handle it. So I came up with
this analogy that’s more suited to kids than my Tory Burch shoe analogy above.
Imagine going into a
big candy store. It has EVERYTHING sweet
and delicious a kid might want. And
everything looks soooo good…maybe Bit O’ Honey is not your thing, but gummy
sharks? Heck yeah! And your mom tells you that you can pick out
three things. How do you ever pick just
three from the whole entire store? You
just do. Does it mean you rejected all the other candy in the
store? Technically, sure. But does it feel like rejection? Not really – you just picked the three things
that seemed really good at that moment.
If you go back next week, you may pick three different things. Or one or two the same and something else
different. (The gummy sharks tasted
stale.) Or maybe this week you can only
get one. Next week you can get
four! All the candy is good…there are different
flavors and some are just variations on the same thing (red Swedish fish,
cherry gum drops, and red gummy worms) but you still have to narrow it
down. And sometimes there is a candy
that’s there all the time but no one really chooses except on rare occasions (wax
lips?)…but you know it’s there should you ever desire it.
Kids can probably
understand that. They make choices all
the time – ONE lollipop at the bank, ONE beanie beast at the toy store – they
can see that sometimes options need to be narrowed and maybe you can make the
connection to modeling and acting for them.
Remind them of all the other cool things they do. Teach yourself to get past the go-sees and
holds that don’t result in bookings (if they see you upset, they’ll learn to
feel that way, too). As they say, “On to
the next!”
Feedback? Thoughts?
Add a comment here, on my Facebook page The Bizzy Mama, or send me an
email at thebizzymama@gmail.com
…I’m also on Instagram at TheBizzyMama.
Don’t forget to share the love by clicking here…I
want to become a top Mommy Blogger!
No comments:
Post a Comment