We all know that patience is a virtue, however how many actually practice it? There are certain situations where it is obvious: waiting in line for a dinner reservation, or being stuck behind an elderly woman walking across the street. These are situations where most people tend to exercise self control. However, when it comes to our kids and their modeling career, it can be quite tough to stay patient. We understand, because we know how stressful it can be waiting to hear if your child model got a job or not. Your eager child may be filled with energy and expectation, and in turn you call the agent nonstop trying to figure out what’s going on. The best thing you can do is simply stay calm, take a breath, and wait. The agent has just as much at stake if not more and the constant calling only keeps them from doing their job. The key is to understand this is all a part of the process. You need to be patient when it comes to finding time to go to an audition, but during the holding process is where you’ll really be tested. Then hopefully it ends with a booking and if so, you’ll still need to keep your cool. The entertainment industry can be stressful so the more you can relax and exercise patience during the entire process, the better the experience will be for your child. If you are high strung and constantly calling or reaching out to simply receive the same answer, your child will feed off this and their experience in the modeling world will be a negative one. The key is to simply let go and see what happens, and allow things that are out of your control to simply take place.
When it comes to availability you need to be extremely flexible and understand that schedules can change at a moment's notice. If you want your child model to succeed then they need to be available all the time, even if you have to move things around. Until they are bonafide stars, they need to operate based on other peoples’ schedules. This is the toughest part because you may rearrange your week in order to accommodate an audition or job, just for it to be canceled or changed to a different date. This is where patience comes in, instead of being angry and lashing out at the agent or director, you must understand that this is part of the game unfortunately. There will be times when you set everything up perfectly just for a casting agent to ruin all your plans. As long as you and your child model are able to stay available and ready to go, there is no reason some schedule changes should stop you.
Holding is when your child has been chosen as a top prospect from everyone that has auditioned, and their tape/images are being sent to the show runner/producer/client. This can be an extremely stressful time because you are so close to booking and yet still waiting to hear. The most important thing you can do is not call your agent daily to see if a booking has come in. Just like we mentioned earlier, your child’s agent is working for you to ensure you have the best experience possible. They will never simply leave you waiting when a booking is on the line. When your child is holding, what you can do is use it as confidence that your child model is on the right track. Even if they didn’t get the job they were still in the running which means a lot. Use this time to think about what got them this far, and what could push them to being even better, instead of simply blowing up your agent with, “Did you hear anything?” emails.
The biggest moment of the process is of course when your child model books the job! Your agent will surely call or email you with this amazing news as soon as they hear, so there is no reason to ever ask them if it happened. Once they are booked you’ll need to muster up all the patience you have left from the process and be ready to schedule your life around that job. You and your child need to be ready to be on set exactly when you are supposed to and never act out if anything seems unfair. There are hundreds if not thousands of other children looking to take that job and if the producer finds any reason to make a change, they can easily do so. Simply put, be where they need you, whenever they need you. This will allow your child model to learn the skills of being patient with other people, and while on the job. Nothing is better than a model that does as they’re told, with no arguments or fits.
At Bensimon Models & Talent we want to make sure the process of booking your child is as seamless as possible. The hardest part is getting constant calls asking about whether a child has gotten a job, or why they are still holding, etc. Please keep in mind that we want to see your child succeed in every way possible and would never withhold information that you need. We are all in this together rooting for your child’s success, and we hope it can be a positive experience for all, especially your child.
