Dance is a form of art, and the human body is the canvas. It is your child’s body moving in space and time with energy. Dance is a form of cultural expression; it supports the development of many other abilities.
Dance will teach your child the value of creativity, and the skills of problem solving, risk taking, and higher-order thinking.
Earlier in the book, we discussed how learning one skill leads to learning another skill and that many areas of learning have an effect on another area. This is the same for dance; it helps your child to grow physically, emotionally, socially, and cognitively. Many parents can see how dance enhances their child’s physical skills but are less familiar with how dance develops other skills. Let’s take a moment and visit two areas.
Social-emotional development: At this age, children want a dance partner or an audience. Dance promotes social interaction and cooperation. Your child will communicate with you through dance and the movements of his body. Dance is an excellent outlet for a four year old to express emotions and feelings. Dancing enables your child to be aware of himself in a particular music-filled space.
More importantly, dance develops the brain and teaches your child to think about the different ways he will move his body. But you have to give him tools to help him be successful with it. Tools include music to listen to and props like scarves and instruments to help support movement and music skills. If you just say to your child, “Dance,” but you don’t give him tools, he’ll just stand there. Four year olds like to discover what their bodies can do. They delight in isolating body parts, changing directions and levels, exploring each part’s range of motion, and increasing their abilities.
Dance requires your child to expand his range of motion and use every part of the body. It includes f ine motor (small muscle) and gross motor (big muscle) skills, as the body parts are moved in different directions at the same time, hands included. Your child will improve his coordination skills as he learns to twirl around without falling.
A dance-infused environment will lead to new moves and new skills for your child. He will eventually feel a sense of accomplishment at conquering tasks, leading to higher levels of general self-esteem than if he was never to have dance as a part of his life.
Through dance, physical development is expanded in the following ways:
1. Flexibility—Your child can sit and touch his toes with his hands and hold his feet.
2. Stamina—When your child was a toddler he got tired after five minutes of dancing; now your child can engage in a dance experience for 30 to 45 minutes.
3. Posture—As your child learns to stretch his body and keep his shoulders back he will stand straighter and have better posture.
4. Weight—Dance can help a child who is overweight slim down.
