How to Cope Up With Stage Fright in Children?

There will come a point in your kid’s life where they are going to be the center of attention. Well, most of the kids love all the attention they get, but not every child feels the same. It is very common to see small children experience stage fright, especially when it comes to extra-curricular activities like dancing, recitals, or even giving presentations in front of their classmates. As a result, stage fright can lower the confidence level of your child which can also impact their self-esteem to a great extent. Hence, to overcome such situations, we have come up with a helpful guide that will throw light on some of the effective tips and strategies to overcome stage fright in your child.

Effective Strategies to Overcome Stage Fright in Kids

1. No One is Perfect

Once your child is up on the stage, ready to face the world, one of the most common fears that kids have is that they are going to mess up and everyone is going to witness that. In such situations, we expect you to be candid with your kids and tell them it is normal to make mistakes. Everyone makes mistakes and over a while, it gets unnoticed by everyone around. You can also cite your example of how you messed up a work presentation, but it still went well. This will help your kids to feel more connected to you and feel better when they are on stage.

Related Article: 5 Unique Tips To Build Consistency In Your Kid

2. Convert Anxiety Into Excitement

Did you know that both anxiety and excitement are closely related emotions? Well, both of these emotions have the power to get our hearts pumping and make us think about our performance. One of the best ways to help your kids deal with stage fright is by talking to them about the emotions that they experience. Certainly, anxiety is quite common and as a parent, it is on you to convince your child about those feelings and tell them that they are going to do an excellent job. Your words of encouragement will help them to surpass their fears of being on stage and get them pumped up for their performance.

3. Be Positive

As a parent, you will always be your child’s number 1 cheerleader, and being optimistic about their overall performance on stage can play a significant role in helping them to change their attitude about the whole thing. You do not want to play with your child’s fear when it comes to stage fright because being in front of a large audience is something that they are going to be doing for the rest of their lives, that is whether they are in college or giving presentations at work. Prep them well with a good mindset so that they can feel positive and confident about themselves and their performance.

4. Practice Along With Your Kids

There is an old and probably one of the most popular sayings that we all are aware of: “practice makes the man perfect”, and we believe that it is 100% true. The more your kids will practice before they go on stage, the more comfortable they will become with this routine and this will amp up their live performance. But, whenever they are practicing just make sure that you don’t restrict their practice sessions only to the bedroom, make them practice while you watch them from your living room. And we can assure you that if they can do this then they can handle any presentation they have.

5. Ask Your Kids to Look at the Back of the Room

Perhaps one of the biggest and the most common mistakes that a child makes when they are on stage is directly looking at the audience. Once they look at the audience they are going to get even more panicked and as a result, they may end up spoiling their performance. As parents, you need to train your kids to stay more focused on what they are doing and not what people are thinking about them. When you are helping your kids to practice, make sure that they look past you and not at you.

6. Don’t Ignore Their Fears

There may be a possibility that your child may have stage fright due to a specific reason. This can be people laughing at them or messing up their performance on stage. Hence, you should talk to your child and try to understand why they have stage fright. These little thoughts can give rise to a big fear in your child. You need to create an environment where your child is honest with you so that you can easily resolve the underlying issue behind their stage fright. So carefully listen to your child and their problems and you will see that being on stage scares them and you need to help them overcome this problem.

7. Play and Practice

It is a known fact that kids learn better when they play. So to help them overcome the fear of stage fright, you can make your kids practice in front of their toys. There is no end to a child’s creativity and you may have experienced that kids love naming their stuffed animals, they give them names, and they truly stick to them by their side. Asking them to practice in front of their favorite toys can play a great role in overcoming stage fright. Once your child starts performing in front of their stuffed toys, they will be able to hear all the positive feedback and this will make them practice even more.

8. Teach Your Kids the Art of Pacing

There can be a possibility that when your kids are on stage, due to the stage fright factor they may end up rushing through their performance. Perhaps, an important thing that you can teach your child is the true art of pacing. Pacing can help them to find the right flow on stage and this will make them more focused on their performance. Pacing will also help your kids to strike a perfect balance and give a presentation at a good pace and this will also make them feel like they can control their performance as per their thought process.