How Can You Become a Child Actor When You Have So Much Homework?

Image by topgold via Flickr, Homework When You Become a Child Actor

If you want to become a child actor, you need to spend many hours working on your career. It is hard to have time to do what you need to do to become a child actor (i.e., acting classes, coaching, rehearsing, auditions) when you have to go to school and do homework each day.

When school is in session, particularly as you get older, homework often takes 2 to 3 hours or more each day. My daughter started back to school a few weeks ago. She has already had so much homework that she had to pass on several auditions.

Passing on auditions is never a good thing when you are pursuing an acting career, especially if your talent representatives set it up for you.

The auditions my daughter passed on were some I got for her from submitting on LA Casting and Actors Access, but I still hated for her to miss them. All auditions help in developing acting abilities and could result in jobs — meaning more experience, more for a resume, and (possibly) money.

But there are times in your life when you have to decide what is most important to you.  My daughter does not want to be homeschooled, and she wants good grades so she can get into a good university. So she chooses to miss a few auditions in order to have enough time to study and complete her homework.

She and I would both prefer that school was less demanding so she could go to all the auditions like she did when she was younger. When she was younger,  her homework typically took less than an hour each day. And it was not a big problem when she had to leave school early or even miss school for acting jobs.

She also had time to go to acting classes 2 or 3 times per week. There was one very positive effect all this acting had on her at school — it boosted her reading level to the 12th grade level when she was in 3rd grade (from reading all the acting sides and scripts). So being a child actor really can have some benefits!

For more on the topic of schoolwork and becoming a child actor, see “When You Become a Child Actor, How Do You Keep Up With Schoolwork?”

There are times when nearly every child actor becomes frustrated at trying to keep up with homework and schoolwork while going to auditions and all the other activities you typically participate in when you become a child actor.

So, “How Can You Become a Child Actor When You Have So Much Homework?”

If you want to become a child actor, you can still attend public school, and you can still get your homework done. You need to understand, though, that at times it will be extremely difficult.

Making up missed classwork and homework is not always easy, particularly if there are projects or presentations. These may need to be done in class, be done with other kids during and/or after school, be done on computers at the school, or require a great deal of teacher explanation and guidance.

The Set Teacher

When you work a union job, there will be a set teacher to help with schoolwork. The set teacher certainly can help you with learning and getting much of your schoolwork done, but it can’t replace your specific teachers’ comments and instructions or help with work on group projects that you miss when you are away.

Going to Auditions Takes Time

It can take the better part of the afternoon and evening to go to even just one audition (and it will be even worse if you have more than one on a particular day), particularly if you have to travel a long distance or travel in heavy traffic to/from the audition. This certainly makes it hard to get homework done.  This also makes meeting with other kids to work on a school project in the afternoon or evening almost impossible.

Teachers and Administrators

Teachers and administrators are not likely to be terribly understanding when you miss school due to a show business career. Most won’t be sympathetic when you come to school with homework not done because of acting auditions or jobs. Other students will be mad when you can’t work on group projects with them when you have last minute auditions.

As a Parent, What Can You Do?

As a parent, you can help out by scheduling auditions, whenever possible, to a later time so that your child does not have to miss even part of the school day. You can even talk to your child’s talent representatives and tell them to always schedule after a certain time.  Unfortunately, if auditions are a long distance away, it can’t always work out that way though.

Good Time Management Is Important to a Child Actor

So, what can a child actor do to balance acting and homework? First of all, you need to become very good at managing your time to pull off pursuit of an acting career and keeping up with your work at school. Working smart is very important.

The following six tips will be helpful:

1. Complete all homework promptly (no procrastination) and work ahead whenever possible, especially during slow audition times.  By keeping up and working ahead, the damage done when you lose an entire afternoon and evening due to audition preparation and/or auditions will be minimized. For example, don’t put off those book reports and term papers or studying for tests until the last day or two.
2. On days when you know you have an audition/auditions after school, use class time wisely. When teachers allow you to work on homework during class, do it! Spend your breaks and part of your lunch period in the library working on homework as well. You’ll have plenty of time on other days to hang out with friends.
3. If the trip to the audition is a long one, work on homework in the car. If you have trouble with car sickness when you read in the car, see if there are audio versions of any of your books. For novels, you can sometimes find the books on tape in the library or for purchase. You can also record your notes so you can listen to them in the car. Keep pencils, paper, erasers, and other supplies in a bag for the car to make sure you have what you need, and don’t forget your books.  Then, just make sure you allow enough time to review/prepare for the audition as you near your destination.
4. If you know you will have to miss part or all of a school day or days for a job or audition, talk to the teachers ahead of time to get all your assignments, handouts, and other information about what you’ll be missing. Most teachers will respect you for being responsible even if they are not always lenient.
5. Pick out a couple of students/friends in each of your classes and exchange phone numbers so you can call them to find out what happened in class and so you can borrow their notes when you have to miss. Offer the same service for them for when they have to miss school.
6. For group projects, take the lead and get your group together as soon as the project is assigned. Sign up for parts of the project that can be done alone and early and get them finished and back to your group quickly. Do extra work on the project when you can, and try to help get the project finished early, even if it means you do more than your share. Then, if an audition causes you to be unavailable, you won’t be considered a slacker or make the other members of your group angry. You’ll also be sure the project gets finished on time and is of high quality so you won’t make a bad grade.  (Another option is to actually ask if you can do your group project alone. It may be more work for you, but it might be easier to get it done this way.)

If this all just seems to overwhelming to you and you still really want to pursue a career in show business, you can look into other schooling options.

Some possible options for you are:

1. Private school – most will be somewhat more accommodating than public schools since you are paying them. Some may also have classes in the arts during the school day.
2. Schools of the Arts – most have classes in the arts during the school day, so you won’t need to do so many activities after school (acting classes, music lessons, etc.) Also, the school release time may be earlier than the typical 3:00 for most public schools.
3. Homeschooling – you can work around your show business schedule. (See “Homeschool Education vs. Public School Education for Young Actors” for more on this topic.)

Good luck with your auditioning and with getting all your homework and schoolwork done! Remember young actors must keep at least a C average to continue getting a work permit, so don’t let your grades drop.

If you start struggling, hire a tutor to help, but don’t wait until after your grades have already dropped too low to recover.

For more on this topic and many others related to children and showbiz, please subscribe to Young Actors Newsletter (Go signup now in the sidebar to the right if you did not do so already).

To your success,

Debbie Sikkema