Effective Ways Child Actors Can Practice Acting at Home

How Your Kid Can Practice Acting at Home

by Holly • June 11, 2022

Practice acting at home is a good idea especialy when you go to an audition, most of the time, you don’t leave the audition hall with a contract in hand. You don’t end the day and go to bed already knowing whether or not you made it. The time interval between participating in an acting audition and the time you spend waiting for the casting directors’ decision can be laborious. It is overwhelming for an adult—but can be more so for a child. For an aspiring child actor, not hearing any word about the audition for a long time could discourage them from going to one again. This is where you as a parent should come in. Explaining to them how the industry works and teaching them patience do wonders. But apart from that, there’s one thing you can do to help them wait it out productively: you and your child could use the time to practice acting at home. How? Here are ways your kid can effectively practice acting at home.

Best Ways a Child Actor Can Practice Acting at Home

1. Reenact TV scenes

Kids tend to watch a lot of shows, and then they see a character they grow to love. You can use their admiration toward certain TV show characters to hone their skills. You can pen some monologues from the show and reenact some scenes, preferably the ones you think they love the most to get them interested in the activity. Later on, at their next audition, they can use these monologues to give a more powerful performance.

2. Help them understand emotions

Speaking of monologues, you can help your child understand emotions by performing the same monologue in different styles. For example, if the scene they want to reenact revolves around a kid who just discovered something, you can have them try meeting the discovery with happiness, shock, sadness, etc. You may divert from the original emotion portrayed in the scene. Give your child the freedom to act it out however they want, just make sure they are able to display an array of emotions, as this can help them analyze the scene from different angles, something that would come in handy during the actual audition.

3. Stage an at-home theater play

You know how kids who are taking piano lessons or ballet classes have recitals? You can create your own version to help your child practice acting at home. You can invite their friends and have them participate in a mini theater play, and your neighbors could act as the audience. It does not have to be grand, but it should be big enough for the child to have an idea how a theater play works. Assembling an audience also helps them get comfortable with performing before a group of people.

3. Ask them to develop their own story line

Apart from being a great way to practice acting at home, having your kid come up with their own story will help them understand different roles in the future. Let them use their imagination and unleash their creative side. Your child actor will learn to pay more attention to the tiniest of details about a character’s emotion and purpose in the story if they are the ones making the story themselves. At their next audition, if your child would be given a unique character to play, it would be easier for them to analyze it and get into the role.

5. Let them study and learn from other child actor’s performance

Every well-established actor now has once sat through another actor’s movie and learned from them. You can watch other kid actor’s performance with your child. Once it ends, ask for their opinion on how the role was played and how they would have played it if your child were given the same role. Waiting for a callback could be emotionally unbearable. Every hour that passes could be a torture, but with your help, the burden can be eased. Follow these tips and make the waiting time more productive for your child actor.