Managing stress in children through dance as a therapeutic form in sensitive periods

The coronavirus pandemic has come with a lot of fears, worries and anxieties that children do not know how to perceive and therefore cannot manage effectively, especially if they were already facing such challenges. Let\’s find out together how we can manage stress during this period while we are going back to kindergarten / school, and how dancing helps us as a therapeutic form in this regard.

A life skill that is very tested

No one is immune to the stress that comes with a pandemic and the accompanying quarantine. However, children may be at particular risk in this regard. They already live in a universe that is out of their control, and can be affected when the truths they rely on to give order to the world and the rituals in their lives are shaken. This pandemic brings a change in their environment, life style and in their normality.

How the pandemic affects children\’s emotional balance

Depending on their age, children may have different ways of reacting to all the fuss created around the pandemic. The little ones, for example, can be very happy to spend more time with their parents who work from home and want to be around them all the time. They cannot always understand adults’ need to carry out their professional activity without being distracted or interrupted. At the same time, there may be times when the little ones regress to behaviour from when they were younger to bring them security and help them calm down. In this way they self-regulate, and they alone will come out of this regression when they feel that the danger they feel has passed. On the other hand, older children and adolescents will feel more acutely the lack of friends and the time spent with them.

Fear of the unknown to themselves and to others. Even if we manage to avoid the risk of being infected with the virus, we cannot avoid the fear caused by this thought. For example, some children give voice to it in their own games and scenarios, thus freeing themselves from some of the negative feelings accumulated during this time. Moreover, the opening of kindergartens and schools inspires added insecurity while the exact format in which the courses will take place remains unknown.

Deepening the feeling of loneliness. This is common for children separated from their friends. Caution and fear keep us away from playgrounds, public events and activities for children, or perhaps even summer classes at an educational institution where they may have interacted and socialized with other children their age.

Developing a mental illness. More and more pre-existing mental illnesses are exacerbated in this context: anxiety, depression, ADHD or behavioural problems, and it is important to provide children with the care and treatment needed to keep them under control.

How dance therapy can help manage stress

Stress management involves recognizing the sources that generate it, how it affects us and how we react to overcome it. One of the most effective ways to eliminate stress from children\’s lives, regardless of the factors that cause it, is dance therapy. This will allow children to process creatively, first through movement and body release, and then cognitively to overcome the events that inspire fear, helping them to feel their self through movement.

Dance facilitates finding solutions at the body level, unlocking certain blockages that restrict both the part of free and fluid movement, and the way we act in everyday life. By improving the image of our body and one\’s own person, it will increase self-confidence, activating the state of consciousness, thus having a positive impact on our mood, with many benefits for our health. Therefore, stress management through dance therapy involves release, relaxation and tuning to the problems encountered by understanding and accepting them, in order to overcome the difficult moments we are going through.

As long as we identify in time the sources of stress in children\’s daily lives and help them relax through friendly methods such as dance therapy, it will be much easier for them to manage and process stressful situations.