Boost Your Child’s Confidence & Self-Esteem with Dance Lessons

Dancing teaches children how to handle life’s other challenges with grace

Learning to dance offers many valuable life lessons for children. One main benefit of dance lessons is the noticeable increase in a child’s confidence and self-esteem in just a few months.

When our students master a new dance or skill well, it raises their self-esteem exponentially. Dancing can be challenging, so if your child becomes proficient at dancing, they will be able to handle other life challenges with confidence.

Nan’s Dance offers a safe space for children to try new things and build up their confidence.

“No one’s afraid to ask a question or ask for extra help,” explained Dance Director Hillary White. “We’re always very open to our students, and parents as well, and let anyone feel like they can talk to us.”

Dance Lessons Promote a Positive Body Image

During dance lessons, your child will discover how their body moves. The increased coordination, flexibility and body-awareness that comes with regular dance definitely raises self-esteem and improved self-esteem leads to improved overall wellness.

Dance classes also encourage a positive body image by teaching children to love their bodies and develop a healthy, active lifestyle from a young age. It takes positive self-image and great confidence to dance on stage in front of an audience, and dance helps encourage both of these valuable qualities.

“We’ve been so amazed at the improved confidence of our students year after year at Nan’s Dance,” she said. “They grow exponentially in here and the difference from August to May is a world of difference!”
“We see a lot of students who start the year shy and timid and even closed off, and then throughout the year we start to see their personality come out more,” Hillary explained. “The friendships children form in our studio with other dancers can also be a major source of confidence.”

Kids discover how to be brave as they learn to perform in front of others. Dancing on stage over and over boosts confidence in an enormous way. Although it’s normal to be a little nervous, the more your child performs on stage, the more confident they will feel every time they do it again. As they become more confident in themselves, the better they will perform. When they hear the cheering and applause from the audience, it gives them even more confidence in their abilities.

Each Step Learned Is A Building Block To Success

“Dance also gives you a big sense of accomplishment as different goals are achieved,” Hillary added. “Our classes provide children with a specific goal to reach each week, whether it’s the small goal of learning a new step, or a bigger goal of learning an entire dance to perform on stage—we are always very positive and encouraging with helping them meet those goals.”
Whether a student is learning a new step, a turn or leaps, they are encouraged at every level. “Whatever level a dancer is, we never want anyone to feel left behind,” she said. “If they are having trouble with a step or if something is not clicking, we break things down into smaller steps, so they’re able to get it and succeed. Stumbling along the way is normal and everyone goes through it.”

When a teacher is helpful and provides positive feedback, a student then feels comfortable to do something harder. As students see themselves succeed at the first step they learn, they’ll be more confident to work hard towards the next step.

“It’s like building blocks, we start with the bottom layer and build and build,” she added. “Dancers can’t do the next step until they get the first one right. That’s the journey of dance— you keep moving forward.”
The more the students learn, the more they feel confident. “We had a girl in an elementary class who had never danced before and her mother said she didn’t have a real passion for anything,” said Hillary. “But then she fell in love with dance! For her final project at school, she did it all on dance.”

For the project, the girl showed a video to her class of her doing her recital dances to show what she learned.

“She was so confident and proud of them,” she added. “She finally discovered what her thing was, and her mother was so happy that she finally found a passion!”

The confidence and focus children learn and practice at Nan’s Dance are important life skills that will transfer over to school and all other aspects of their lives. We’ve been sharing the love of dance with our students since 1975. Nan’s School of Dance is a place for your dancer to grow and establish self-discipline and self-confidence while also having fun! Register for fall classes today!