All cultural communities put this moment and music together into one or more dance forms. Essentially this education provides children with the benefits of unique learning and development that comes from organising movements into a particular pattern called dance.
When practised regularly, dancing helps children of all ages in many different facets of their lives, both physically and psychologically, the benefits of dance in early childhood are worth the commitment.
There are many schools across the country which have now started giving importance to dance as a development tool in kids. However, this has been inherent in the multidisciplinary culture of Pioneer World School.
Lets us have a look in what ways dance lead to the development of children:
Physical Development
One of the most visible benefits of dancing is physical development of children. They learn a range of motion, pattern formation, muscle strength, coordination, endurance and body awareness. Also balance and faster reflex! Dance movement requires the use of the entire body which needs a level of fitness that is unparalleled by other activities. So dancing helps children understand that the movements are endless and fun to work around. Also, children are sometimes too active or too shy and dance helps them concentrate their energy positively.
Cognitive Development
Children respond to an idea or problem very easily and quickly, and they use movements for that, like getting out of the crib or climbing back – creating a cognitive link to the solution. Cognitive development creates awareness and tells you how to function better. So while dancing, the idea achieves several concepts – transferring of weight, leg extensions, space recognition, imagination, how to express better, balance and more. This helps them with the physical expressions or outcomes and gives them another positive to handle things while they are still developing on their verbal and written communication.
Overcoming roadblocks
As new challenges are thrown, in controlled or uncontrolled environments – overcoming these small challenges, a child learns a process of accomplishing hard things. The different steps and routines ensure that children will be actively be getting better in this aspect of their development. Practicing dance lowers down stress, which helps to deal with challenges effectively.
Emotional Maturity
Not to forget that dance is art! An art form thus helping children to creatively express what they feel. There are varied ways and opportunities that children can use to express their emotions; Here, dance provides a structured outlet for healthy physical and emotional release, helping develop emotional maturity.
Philosophy
Children in their primary years learn most with what they see and experience. “Action is the test of comprehension” (John Dewey, 1915). For children, verbal language and movement are tangled! When a child moves further to the secondary level of education they develop language, the preverbal movement actions do not cease. Here dance could help children develop literacy, the road to which involves translation of movements, expressions and communicating into words. Learning words or dance are woven together and aren’t separate threads, they put together a fabric of better communication and understanding.
Social Awareness
Dance isn’t just about one’s own body and balance, but also others with you. Children hence have an opportunity to learn and feel comfortable in the social setting. They also learn to corporate, share, work, understand space, form lines; watch, appreciate and support the effective movement of themselves and others. They learn the art of empathy, appreciation and communication in groups, where the importance is on effort and process and not on the end result. Group dynamics in dance challenges children to respect others as they share and move in a common space in unison.
Bottom Line
Dance leaves you with great confidence, good health and deep self-knowledge, which is a great blend of any child to start, look at things and learn and understand better as they grow.
