Dancing with Children Embodied Parenting

I would like to share this lecture and open the discussion of dancing with children; embodied parenting.  As a mother I did feel the struggle of communication with my loved ones.  Words are not always the best form of communication, especially in families: children are developing vocabulary, structures and meanings.  Often times children do not know how to verbalise feelings and emotions that they barely understand.  The elderly in families are also vulnerable to exclusion as they loose verbal and auditive capabilities.  Couples sometimes struggle with verbal communication as well, and the wrong choice of words can cause unnecessary pain and heartbreak.

Body language is more natural and less complex than the cognitive process required for verbal language.  Babies, the elderly, and family members are fluent in non-verbal, emotional communication.  We need to be silent, to observe and dance with each other in a true effort of natural communication.  The notion that we stop and dance with our children is a gift of love, compassion and understanding, and an extraordinary activity for their healthy child development.

When working with children in their early years, they seem all to be natural dancers.  As a dance educator I had the unique experience early on in my practice working in the preschool classroom, dance improvisation and music improvisation was an extraordinary activity with which to begin class.  In a safe environment when feeling encouraged, the moment the children heard the music play they would burst in spontaneous and personal dance.  Through this rich and embodied dance experience, the children communicated acutely in nonverbal language about themselves, about their fantasies and about their immediate life stories.  It only seems perfect that intimate moments such as these be shared with their parents and caregivers.