How to Prepare Your Child for Picture Day
It's Not All About Practicing a Smile :)
Most picture day advice tells you to have your child practice smiling in the mirror.
I want to offer a different approach, because after ten years of photographing children I have noticed something. The kids who arrive having rehearsed a smile very often give me that exact smile and nothing else. It comes out a little frozen. Shoulders up, eyes tight, teeth on display. And once a child decides that smiling is the assignment, it can be hard to coax anything looser out of them.
Preparing your child is really about how they feel walking in. Not what their face does.
1) Tell them what you love about them, and be specific
This is the single most useful thing you can do, and it costs nothing.
The night before or the morning of, tell your child what you love about them. Not general praise. Specific, physical, personal things.
I love your curly hair. I love how your eyes crinkle when you laugh. I love your giggle. I love your eyelashes. I love how silly you get at bedtime.
A child who walks into picture day having just heard those things carries themselves differently. They are not wondering whether they look right. They already know somebody thinks they are wonderful.
2) Let them know a lady with a camera will be at school to capture how wonderful they are!
Here is the frame that helps most: the photographer is there to capture everything beautiful about you. She wants to see your silly face, your happy smile, your RAWR and peek-a-boo!
You can say it just like that. She wants to see your silly face. She wants to see your giggle.. She wants to see the way you are.
The goal is to lessen the pressure of performing and give space to let them show up as themselves.
About that awkward smile
I know how much parents want a happy, smiling photo. I am a mom, I understand.
But I want to gently offer this. The photos families end up loving most are very often not the perfect ones. The lopsided grin. The half-serious face. The smile they are still figuring out how to do. The missing tooth they are proud of.
Ten years from now that awkward smile is not going to look awkward to you. It is going to look exactly like your child at that age, which is the whole point of taking the picture.
I do everything I can to get a natural smile. We chat, we play a little, we take our time. Asking a child to smile is genuinely my last resort, because the smile that comes from a command rarely looks like the one that comes from a laugh.
If you do want to practice, layer it
Some families do want that classic smiling portrait, and there is nothing wrong with that. If you have been practicing at home, it will show up, and we will get it.
Just add a second layer for your child. Tell them: first we will do your nice smile, and then we get to do the silly ones. Knowing there is a fun part coming keeps them from locking into performance mode for the whole session.
The practical morning stuff
Sleep. A tired preschooler and a camera are not friends.
A real breakfast. Hungry kids have short fuses.
Extra time. A rushed, stressful morning walks into the classroom with them.
Quick face and hands wipe at drop-off. Breakfast likes to linger on little chins.
Your only job:
Send them fed, rested, and having just heard that you love their curly hair, pretty eyes and their silly giggles.
I will take care of the rest.
