Using creative dance for expressing emotions in preschool children

Abstract

ABSTRACT The major importance of preschool children’s mental health with regard to their emotional and social development has a documented ground in the literature. In these domains, it is crucial for young children to learn how to express their emerging emotions appropriately and efficiently. Creative dance and movement is already being used as a therapeutic technique in a wide range of interventional processes. But it can also be used as a preventive tool for both reducing socio-emotional risks and maximizing developmental and mental health for typically-developing children in early ages; using creative dance as such is a less discussed subject in the literature. Also, creative dance is thought to be an appropriate method for this purpose because of its compatible features with preschool children’s developmental stages. From this point of view, this study discusses the importance of using creative dance in expressing emotions in early childhood and thus aims to emphasize the importance of integrating two domains in early childhood development, namely, socio-emotional development and expressive and creative movement. A literature review method has been used. The literature review has demonstrated that early childhood is parallel with the expression-based structure of creative dance.