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8 Ways To Help Your Children Overcome Their Stage Fright

Imagine a 14-year-old girl all set to go on the stage and recite the poem for the competition. She has rehearsed in front of her best friends and her teacher. Everything was fine until she faces the audience. Soon she goes blank. She becomes numb and starts sweating. Her hands are trembling and she wants to run away. Despite practising her poem repeatedly, she is unable to say something.

How Kids Can Overcome Stage Fright

You might think this as a negligible issue but children who have 'stage-fright' can become numb the moment they look at a sea of people sitting in front of them. Even though they have rehearsed quite well, confident in difficult situations of their lives, when they have to stand on a stage and deliver a speech, or sing a song, it gets really tough on them.

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If this is the case with your children, then you need to find ways to solve it rather than scolding your children for not having performed on the stage. Therefore, we have listed down some tips through which you can help your children in overcoming stage fright.

1. Let Them Feel Relaxed

1. Let Them Feel Relaxed

If stage fright gets your child then it can make them nervous. As a parent, you can help them to make them feel relaxed. Ask them to take breaths and stay calm the moment they step on the stage. Otherwise, they may get overwhelmed after seeing so many people. You can also ask them to drink a glass of water to calm themselves down and give their performance. Initially, staying calm and relaxed may be a tough thing but constant practice can help in this.

2. Avoid Pressurising Them

2. Avoid Pressurising Them

You can make your children understand that it is okay to make mistakes because we get the opportunity to learn from them. Rather than asking them to perfect, let them feel comfortable and confident in whatever they do.

Ask them what kind of problems they face when they step on the stage. Don't pressurise them to be the first. Instead, you can guide them to practice repeatedly and stay motivated.

3. Help Them To Stay Positive

3. Help Them To Stay Positive

It is obvious for a person to feel nervous and scared after facing the audience. In such a situation, it is better to stay positive and recall things to perform well. Therefore, you need to motivate your children to stay positive.

For that, you can ask them to close their eyes for a while and take deep breaths. Also, you can ask them to smile and pretend that they are performing in front of family members.

4. Make Them Feel Confident

4. Make Them Feel Confident

In order to overcome the stage fright, you need to make your children feel confident of themselves. Therefore, it is better to help them in gaining their self-confidence. For that, you can encourage them to have faith in their effort and give their best. Also rather than copying others, let your kids keep their performance natural as this will make them feel confident of themselves.

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5. Share Your Experience With Them

5. Share Your Experience With Them

If you ever had any experience of performing on stage and facing a huge audience, then you can share the same with your children. Let your children know how you managed to perform on the stage and what sort of things you did to overcome your stage fright. This will surely help your children before giving a performance on the stage.

6. Have A Preparation Strategy

6. Have A Preparation Strategy

As a parent, you can come up with a preparation strategy for your kids. This can include practising in front of the mirror and working on the body language. You can also ask them to perform in front of their friends and family members. This will help them in working on their grey areas.

7. Let Them Visualise Their Own Performance

7. Let Them Visualise Their Own Performance

There is no denying that audio-visuals have a great impact on our minds. What you watch and hear stays with you for a long time and therefore, through this, you can help your children to overcome their stage fright by letting them visualise their own performance. You can also record the rehearsal of your children.

After this let them see their own rehearsal to know where they are lacking, what improvements they need to make and if their body language was in sync with their performance? This will not only improve their performance but will also remove their stage fear.

8. Ask Them to Reach Early

8. Ask Them to Reach Early

Often people arrive late or a few minutes before the programme starts and move across the room to find their place or maybe they will go out of the room whenever they feel convenient, in the middle of your performance or speech. You shouldn't feel nervous or start panicking because of it, rather give your best shot while on stage.

The best thing that your children can do on the day of the programme is to reach early and relax for a while. With this, they can rehearse for one more time and feel confident. Also, they can check their looks and calm themselves down.

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Stage fright is not a big issue. All you need to do is have faith and confidence in yourself and give your best. There is no short cut of overcoming the fear but practicing a number of times will make you conquer it.

Story first published: Tuesday, November 19, 2019, 11:45 [IST]