I talk a lot about improv. Of course I do! I run a theater, I teach, and I perform. I also am a parent. Three boys. All three about to be full on teens and it's a lot. We also deal with chronic rare illness and a variety of other challenges. It's a weird line. We've been dealing with it since they were very young and as they have grown older, they are wanting more privacy and I need to respect that.
It's also important to talk about being a parent to older kids and to kids who have special needs. It can become isolating. So I balance what they want and what I want. In many ways, it's like improv.
In improv I am not on stage alone. I don't dictate all the decisions and I definitely have no idea what's going to happen. As a parent, of course there are decisions that I dictate but this is something we do together. Children have their own temperaments, ideas, and love to say "no, but"!
It's easy to feel like you are failing as a parent and we fail all the time in improv. We can take those improv lessons about failing as opportunities and connect them definitely to parenting.
Improv is also great for parents. It connects us to something outside of our kids lives and let's us remember the joy of creativity and make believe. Those experiences make us stronger, more engaged parents.
I'll probably write more about the intersection of improv and parenting, especially as we are dealing with quite a lot in our household. For now, all you parents who also are improvisers, keep being rockstars!