Parent What You Preach

I try to teach each of the elements of dance (time, energy, and space) in my creative dance lessons. Saturday we will have a lesson on energy. Since this is an abstract concept for kids, I use games like "Cookies" and visuals and words to express the quality of movement. For example, I will show a picture of an egg intact and then an egg dripping down after it has been cracked. Kids will get to imitate the movement of the egg. In Cookies game, the children get to be the ingredients,  and then they become the sticky goopy cookie dough, then they get rolled out and stamped into a cookie shape. Kids LOVE this game, I know I did when my mom would play it with us! So, if your child has never made cookies with you, this is a good opportunity to talk about what the ingredients look like and feel like- how the sugar sprinkles into the bowl or how the butter melts from a rectangular shape into a goopy blob. In imitating these things with their bodies, kids can learn that dance moveme

Story Time Last night I went to a dance class where we worked on partnering and improvisation. The teacher gave us an exercise to do with a partner in which we reacted to each other with movements that said either "yes" or "no."  It was all up to you each moment whether you were going to say yes or no in response to your partner.  It was a fascinating exercise.  The suspense of never knowing what the partner was going to say or dance next and then making up your mind on the fly both with your actions and your voice was a very good exercise in decisiveness!  I learned that it was sometimes fun to say "no" and sometimes fun to say "yes."  It didn't really matter too much if I said and danced "yes" or "no" because my partner could also make up her mind about yes or no and no one got offended.  It is very therapeutic too, if, say, you are approaching your employer to ask for a raise and the anxiety of whether they will say &q

A former certified behavioral therapist for children with disabilities, Kierstena -mom of 2 (almost 3)-  challenges herself and others to use the techniques and training she used - and taught other parents to use- during the 6 years of her career. This blog is intended to encourage, inform, inspire, and relate to parents of all situations and backgrounds.