Digital electronic devices such as cell phones, tablets and computers have become a large part of modern life. They make some things easier for adults. However adults are already supposed to be grown up. There is a lot of debate how new digital reality affects children. Recent example would be Toy Story 5 movie where “old time” toys battle with tablet for child’s attention.
When it comes to children we need to realize that they are still growing and developing their skills. Quite often parents provide children with digital devices to keep them entertained. However, compared to playing with a cell phone (or tablet, or computer), dancing offers much more extensive physical, mental, and social benefits for children that electronic devices cannot replicate.
Physical Development
Physical development is one of the most obvious areas of child development that is easy to discuss. Below are some great benefits that dancing (any kind of dance, Ballet or DanceSport) can offer your child that a cell phone can not:
- Dancing builds core strength. Clearly, cell phones can not do that unless they are really heavy and your child uses them as weights.
- Dancing improves body posture. On the other hand, looking down at the device for prolonged time only hurts posture.
- Dancing enhances gross motor skills. On the other hand, the only motor skills that cell phone potentially can improve are how to use your fingers. How about the rest of your body: arms, legs, torso, neck etc?
- Dancing boosts cardiovascular health. Unless your child is hopping around while using the device, there will be no improvement in cardiovascular health. Taking a one hour dance class, especially a high energy DanceSport class will greatly improve your child’s heart health.
- Dancing develops physical flexibility. The only time your child needs flexibility while using devices is when the cell phone gets stuck behind the couch and needs to be retrieved...
- Dancing prevents bad habits of only sitting and not moving. Devices only create sedentary habits.
Cognitive & Mental Growth
A second important area of child development that is greatly affected by dancing is Cognitive and Mental growth. Child cognitive and mental growth is defined as the progressive development of a child's ability to think, learn, reason, remember, and solve problems. It is very important for your child’s success in the future. Here is how dance compares to electronic devices in this category:
- Dancing sharpens focus and attention to your own body, feelings and emotions. On the other hand devices only sharpen focus towards devices. Children forget everything around them.
- Dancing Improves memory of sequences and organized events through choreography. On the other hand devices only improve memory of passwords.
- Dancing enhances spatial awareness. Devices clearly cannot provide that. Maybe if cell phones were 6 feet tall then there would be a chance to improve spatial awareness.
- Dancing reduces digital overstimulation. Clearly, devices induce digital overstimulation.
- Dancing lowers cortisol and anxiety. Devices increase anxiety in children by disrupting brain development, triggering social comparison, and reducing real-world coping skills.
- Dancing promotes disciplined routine. On the other hand, using digital devices as tools to calm or reward kids often hinders the development of self-control.
Social & Emotional Skills
it is very important for children to develop social and emotional skills because these abilities form the foundation for lifelong well-being, learning, and healthy relationships. This is how dancing helps children to develop those skills unlike using electronic devices.
- Dancing builds real-world friendships. Cell phones reduce face-to-face interaction which is how children learn crucial social skills like reading body language, eye contact, and tone of voice, etiquette and respect for others.
- Dancing teaches collaborative teamwork. Even though digital devices are highly used for teamwork in modern world, children build the strongest social and cooperative skills through direct, unmasked, in-person play and conversation.
- Dancing boosts healthy self-esteem. On the other hand, prolonged use of digital devices exposures children to idealized posts on social media frequently leads to negative self-comparisons, lowering a child's self-esteem.
- Dancing encourages non-verbal expression through movement, gestures and genuine human facial movement. Digital devices simply cannot provide any sort of healthy and natural physical expression.
- Dancing develops emotional resilience. On the other hand, research shows digital devices often hinder healthy emotional regulation and coping skills
- Dancing fosters constructive peer interaction. On the other hand excessive screen time is linked to emotional issues, cyberbullying, and negative peer pressure.
We hope that as a responsible parent you want the best for your child. Please consider reasons why dance classes are better than playing with a cell phone for your child. Reducing screen time by a couple of hours per week might yield great results. Register your child today for dance classes online (yes using that cell phone or computer) or at the studio in person!