How Dance Can Help Your Preschooler's Development

'Development' means changes in your child's physical growth. But it also means changes in their social, emotional, behavior, thinking and communication skills. All of these areas of development are linked, and each depends on and influences the others.

In the early years of your child's life, experiences and relationships stimulate their development, creating millions of connections in their brains. During the first five years is when the foundations for learning, health and behavior throughout life are laid down!

Physical, social, emotional, and cognitive development are all focused on in our preschool dance classes. Finding a program that includes different skills and creativity, such as a combo dance and tumbling class, will greatly impact your child's learning and confidence.

So here are 5 reasons DANCE can help your preschoolers development:

1. Physical Development

Being physically active is vital to your child's health. It gets them moving, developing motor skills, helping your child think, and gives them an opportunity to explore their world.

Dancing is a GREAT physical activity. A love of dance from an early age can help motivate kids to stay active throughout their lives. Dance classes can increase your child's flexibility, range of motion, physical strength and stamina. As well as promoting overall health, enhanced development through dance can help kids with sports and other activities at school and beyond.

During the preschool years, your child should be able to transfer weight, skip, and be able to mimic the movements of others. In dance, children are taught to jump, turn, change feet, go upside down, stand straight, stretch, and balance on one foot. In a combination preschool dance class you can see these physical developments through tap, ballet, tumbling, jazz and hip hop.

2. Social Development

Preschoolers like to be around people. As part of getting along with others, children learn to share, take turns, lead others, and work together. Your child is now more interested in playing and making friends with other children. She might start to play more cooperatively in small groups. She understands the concept of 'mine' and 'his/hers', and sharing starts to get easier.

In dance, your child is taught to take turns in tumbling, be a leader in ballet, or stand in line in tap. Children are taught to work together with the parachute or share a handheld prop. Your child will also become less anxious about being away from their parents and start building trust with their dance teachers.

Dance is a highly social activity. The teamwork in dance develops a greater sense of trust and cooperation and helps your child make new friends. With each class, your child interacts with other dancers, and develops lifelong friendships with those dancers. Dance friends are forever friends!

3. Emotional Development

When your child dances, he or she learns about expressing themself. This expression provides a structured outlet for healthy emotional development. By giving children the freedom to channel their emotions in a safe environment, their self-esteem and confidence increase significantly.

In dance, your child will learn exercises that deal with fear, excitement, frustration, and happiness. For example, your child might jump for joy or stamp angrily.

Children feel happier and might cope better with problems when they get practice learning to understand and manage their emotions. Dance gives your child the opportunity to express strong emotions like excitement, frustration, anger or disappointment, and they're less likely to express these emotions through challenging behavior, like tantrums.

4. Cognitive Development

Your preschooler is fascinated by the world around them and will ask lots of 'who', 'what' and 'why' questions. When it comes to dance, your child learns about opposites like big/small and more/less and concepts like 'on', 'in' and 'under'.

Your child's memory is developing quickly during these preschool years. For example, he can remember songs and might even repeat them back to you. He'll also start to show you steps he has learned and names them. Your child learns how to create patterns of movement and can remember the order of those steps.

Attending dance classes allows your child to learn self-discipline and time management. They know that after ballet, they need to take off their shoes and get ready for tumbling. They learn to practice a skill repeatedly until they can do it independently. This cognitive development helps their overall confidence in the world around them.

5. Creative Development

The preschool years can be one of the most creative times in a child's life. While your child's imagination is still developing, drama, music, dance, arts and crafts can:

• foster creativity
• build your child's confidence
• help your child express feelings and learn communication skills
• help your child develop, practice and improve coordination and motor skills
• give your child a chance to practice decision-making, problem-solving and critical thinking
• help your child find new ways of looking at things.

Role playing in dance, like being a princess or a shark, allows them to creatively express themselves through movement and imagination. Early childhood is the best period for the development of creativity, and creative problem solving will serve your child for life.

Dance and tumbling helps all areas of your child's development. Your preschooler can move fast or slow, or make up actions and dance moves to go along with music. Your child gets to express feelings of sadness, happiness, joy or excitement through movement. You might find your child flying like a butterfly, creeping like a caterpillar or hopping like a frog. These movements help him understand more about the world. You can encourage dancing and tumbling by giving him props and asking him to show off his creative side.

We know that your child's development is your top priority. It's ours too.

Join our award winning Pre-Academy program, where your child becomes happy, healthy and strong.