The Art of Raising an Artist: Oh My Gosh, My Child Wants to Be an Actor

By Lilia Sixtos

Identifies the best training parents can provide for their child within their means

Shows how to develop a safe and loving space for the challenges of a child’s journey

Teaches how to create the support team a child needs

Helps parents find their child’s niche

Explores how parents can fit the needs of their child’s career with the needs of their whole family

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Release date: May 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781642798203

Lilia Sixtos

Lilia Sixtos es reconocida internacionalmente como profesional de teatro, líder de negocios y conferencista en desarrollo personal. Como madre, ha roto viejos patrones familiares al criar conscientemente a sus hijos con talentos artísticos y quiere enseñar a otros padres a hacer lo mismo. Lilia vive actualmente en Cedar Park, Texas. Lilia Sixtos is an internationally recognized theatre professional, business leader, and personal development speaker. As a mother, she has disrupted old patterns in her own family to raise her own artistic children consciously. She wants to teach others to do the same. Lilia currently resides in Cedar Park, Texas.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1:

Oh My Gosh, My Child Wants to Be an Actor!

You’ve been noticing something strange happening to your kiddo. Ever since you went to the town’s holiday variety show, she’s been singing and dancing all around the house. It seems like every week she’s insisting on taking dance lessons. After school, you can’t peel her off the TV long enough to get her to eat. She spends hours mimicking her favorite movies, acting all the scenes out as all the characters. At first, this seemed like a phase; every kid runs on stage during their cousin’s recital, right? She’ll grow out of it in a few weeks… right?

Weeks later, she runs into the living room and tugs at your hand. Mom, I know what I want to be. I want to be an actor. You sigh. This is not going away. You can feel more determination in your child’s voice now. Of course, you love her creativity and do see something special in her. And this is not just parental love here – several other people have told you she has a special spark. You are excited but flooded with fear. Every day we hear a new story of some scandal that happens in show business. You don’t pay attention to gossip columns, but every magazine you pass has big headlines about the new break-up of a famous couple or an actor dealing with drugs or abuse that happened many years ago.

Even without those significant threats, we know that fruitful careers in performing arts are difficult to come by. There is rejection, instability, and substantial competition all along the journey. Most of all, you don’t want to steal precious years from your child by making her into a little performing machine.

Maybe you are thinking, I don’t want to be a mother who doesn’t support her daughter’s talents if she wants to pursue an artistic career. And next thing you wonder is, Is there a way to help her to achieve her dreams of being an actress and at the same time continue to have a healthy life as a child?

Well, this is what this book is all about.

I remember the first time I told my mom that I wanted to be a ballerina. She freaked out, and years later, when my daughter said to me that she wanted to be an actress, I had a bunch of mixed emotions too. So, you are not alone.

As a mother, professional actress, director, and acting teacher and through many years of being near actors and their families, I have found that every parent of an artist has the same basic questions. They wonder about the same things:

•How can I support my kid while still providing a happy and safe childhood?

•Is he talented enough to pursue an artistic career?

•Is she going to be able to make a living out of that career?

•How do I know the best way to start?

•How do I know what the best school for my kid is?

•When is the right moment to start her training?

•How much time do I need to commit?

•Is it an expensive career?

All your questions are entirely valid. Since I became a mother, I feel this instinct to protect my kids. I want to be the best mother I could be, and I try to create the safest environment for them. This is a road I have walked.

Throughout my career as a theatre professional, I’ve noticed many parents become paralyzed by these questions without knowing where or how to ask for help or just waiting for their child to grow out of it and stop wanting to be a performer. Then years later when their desire doesn’t go away and their kid keeps insisting that this is what they want to do, they realize valuable time went by where they could have been exploring their artistic potential. This is especially true in careers like dance or music, where starting training as early as age four is almost imperative to a child’s eventual success.

Realizing this, some parents regret not having looked for more guidance on how to help their child begin their journey during those valuable years. I don’t want that to happen to you. Having said that, if your kid is now more of a teen and those years have passed by, first of all, I want to say, don’t feel bad. You still have time to recover those years and get your teen up to speed with training. I’ll tell you about my personal story in the next chapter, but let me tell you that I started my theatre training at eighteen, my dance training at twenty-one, and by age twenty-four, I was working as a chorus dancer in professional musicals. With enough determination, you can recover.

We are aware that we are raising children in perhaps the most challenging time in history. The dangers and opportunities of the internet age mean it’s more important than ever for kids to have strong character and to develop a strong relationship with their parents.

On top of that, there are specific tools that you may need to learn to support your child’s desires and dreams. The artistic career has its own particular challenges that parents need to address. So, I completely understand why you would ask, Is it possible to help my kids while still providing them a happy and safe childhood?

I want to tell you that yes, it is possible to support your child’s exploration of this beautiful path without compromising the experiences of a normal childhood. Even more, this is an excellent opportunity to create a wonderful relationship with your child because this career requires teamwork from the whole family. Your main job is not to allow your fears to get in the way and become an obstacle for your kid. Every child is unique, and creative children bring so much happiness as they surprise you every day. Some of them are very sensitive – they observe with curiosity or play with colors and forms or love music or dance or pretend to be a different character every day. You will never be bored with a creative child.

If your child’s desire to be an actor, dancer, musician, or singer comes from the bottom of her heart, from her Real Self, you will know. If you want to help her develop her gifts and talents, you are in the right place; I know that this book will give you an excellent guide to start moving forward, paying attention to some essential things for the healthy development of your child.

So breathe deeply, and be ready for the ride.

CHAPTER 2:

My Life Was Not Easy

Life prepares us to complete our mission with unexpected serendipity.

Who would have thought that even the earliest moments of my childhood have been preparing me to write this book?

My Story

I was born into a very humble family in México City. My parents got married very young, and each of them had given up the possibility of pursuing artistic careers for various reasons. My father, an only child, dreamed of becoming a musician in the heyday of the Trios era of Mexican music. He listened to the radio and methodically learned every song on the guitar, and he sang them following the styles of that era.

His father, my grandfather, always disparagingly called him a street musician. Even so, my father just learned the romantic music he heard on the radio and formed a trio with some friends. They knocked on the doors of the radio stations that still had programs with live musicians.

My father’s most significant break was playing a radio show on Saturdays at one a.m. For him, it was the beginning of something that could have gone further had he had the artistic training that allowed him to develop his own style instead of copying what he heard. At eighteen, he started working in a factory, and at twenty-one, he got married. His musician dreams ended there.

My mom lost her dad at two years old and moved to México City with her mother and two siblings. My grandmother was a nurse and never had any brush with the arts. My mom sang all the time as a child and became quite good. In fact, someone heard her sing in a school choir and offered her a national scholarship to study opera. My grandmother opposed the opportunity completely because she thought that an artistic career lacked morality and values. She refused the scholarship on my mom’s behalf and pushed her to begin a secretarial career.

My parents met and got married and found they had something in common: they were frustrated artists, denied the opportunity to pursue their talents – dreams that never came close to becoming a reality.

For my mom, it was easy to continue with her life. She had talent but perhaps not the passion necessary to convince my grandmother to let her study music. My father, though, with talent and plenty of passion for music, has never stopped sighing with sadness every time he talks about his timid attempts at a music career. Many times as a kid, I heard them singing together. I enjoyed it so much, but even then, I understood that was all they had left of their possibilities to develop as professionals.

I discovered dance by accident. When I was around five years old, my parents used to take my siblings and me to the park each weekend. One day, playing around, I heard music from a piano. It was a magical sound that hypnotized me, and without making a choice, I ran toward the source. The music came from a gymnasium where a group of girls were doing ballet steps following a teacher at the front. Without even thinking, I joined the group and started dancing with them.