Why Dance is Important in Early Childhood

Encouraging children to dance is a great way to connect with them

Dance is a multi-cultural expression throughout the world. It’s one of the many ways humans can communicate non-verbally, even with language barriers. Dance often takes many forms and is expressed through thought or feeling. There are many healthy benefits, so let’s discuss them a little bit further.

Dancing is healthy. It’s a form of exercise that can help keep your children stay in shape. Adults may dance for cardio and calorie purposes, but kids just dance because it’s fun and feels good. This actually helps them stay healthy, whether they know it or not. It’s best they don’t know it’s a form of exercise because they may not want to continue dancing.

Dancing also helps kids with physical development. They learn to build a range of motion, coordination, strength and endurance more than most other physical activities. Dancing is another avenue to expand movement possibilities and skills, although they constantly move.

Through dance, children can find a physical release of emotional distress while gaining an awareness and appreciation of his or herself and others.

Dance also creates social awareness where one can encounter, interact and cooperate with others. Some children play better in a group setting while others do better independently. Dance is often a collaborative effort, so this opens up other relationships they may not have had otherwise, including on the playground at school. Plus, it’s always healthy being around others who have the same mindset in which one can relate.

Cognitive development is also another plus to dancing. Kids will create movement spontaneously when presented with the idea. Movement provides the cognitive loop between the idea, problem or intent with a solution. In return, it teaches them to understand relationships in the world.

We should all encourage our children to dance so they can feel better about themselves and their situations. It helps them in school as well as they gain more self confidence about who they are and what they do. Maybe they dance on the playground with their friends. Maybe they dance at home with their siblings and parents. Maybe they dance alone or for competitions. No matter what, dance is a great form of exercise and a great way to connect.