Ballet is a well-rounded, positive activity for children and adults alike. It offers a wide range of mental and physical benefits, including improving strength and flexibility, reducing stress, and improving confidence.

Why is Ballet Good for You? 10 Reasons.

Below are 10 of the top reasons ballet is mentally and physically good for you.

1. Provides Whole Body Workout

Ballet is a full-body workout, engaging all the muscles in your body from your core and legs to back, shoulders, and arms. In addition to being great for strength training, it is also an aerobic activity. This makes ballet a good full-body workout for both children and adults.

2. Offers Stress Relief

Exercises, such as ballet, releases endorphins. These feel-good hormones boost your mood and decrease stress, making ballet an excellent way to decompress. In addition to releasing endorphins, dancing also offers an outlet for expression and communication, which can provide individuals a happier, more positive mindset when faced with adversity.

3. Improves Flexibility

Perhaps one of the most popular reasons ballet is good for you is that it improves flexibility. We’ve all heard of the ballet barre, which is the wooden bar that supports ballerinas as they navigate through a series of stretches and strength training exercises. There are some workouts that are centered entirely around the barre. This portion of a ballet class helps improve flexibility, increasing your range of motion, thus decreasing your likelihood of injury.

4. Increases Discipline

Ballet includes a strict code of discipline. This is true not only in technique, but also uniform—usually down to hairstyle—attitude, and posture. When you dance ballet, you are practicing discipline that will help strengthen this skill in other aspects of life.

5. Improves Balance

Ballet is a great way to improve your balance. Ballet increases core strength and muscle stabilizers, helping the body increase its ability to balance. This can help growing children overcome some of the natural gawkiness that comes with lengthening limbs and growing bodies. For adults taking ballet classes, it can help after body-changing experiences such as childbirth or general aging to help regain balance and grace.

6. Improves Posture

Ballet is also a good way to improve posture. Ballet focuses on lines, angles, strength, and flexibility, all of which contribute to good posture. By exercising these parts of your body and practicing the long, lean lines of ballet, you’ll naturally begin finding yourself sitting and standing with better posture.

7. Provides Social Opportunities

Most people don’t think of ballet as a group sport, but it is! That means ballet offers the same type of socializing opportunities found in many team sports. Dancers engage with other like-minded individuals while strengthening their relationships with each other through trust, communication, shared interest, and teamwork.

8. Increases Energy

Ballet also helps to increase energy. This is because it helps to deliver oxygen and nutrients to your tissues by getting your blood pumping every time you dance. Because it is an aerobic activity, it also helps your cardiovascular and pulmonary systems work more effectively. This helps you increase endurance, giving you more energy throughout the day.

9. Improves Endurance

Like we discussed above, ballet can improve your endurance because of its aerobic benefits. This is also true for the strength-training aspects of ballet. When you dance ballet, you are strengthening your body in multiple ways that help daily tasks and chores come more easily to you, improving your energy and endurance.

10. Nurtures Confidence

Finally, ballet is a great way to nurture your confidence. Because it improves balance, grace, posture, health, and fitness, ballet can not only improve your mental health but also improve your confidence.

What do you love most about ballet?

What do you love most about ballet? Tell us in the comments below!

About the Author

Jennie Creer-King

Owner & Artistic Director

Jennie Creer-King is the owner and artistic director of Central Utah Ballet Academy. She is an award-winning dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Among her awards include “Best School Award” by the Youth American Grand Prix, “Best of State” in Choreography and Youth Performing Group, and the Presidential Scholar’s Teacher Recognition Award. Jennie has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance with an emphasis in Ballet Performance and a Master's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance emphasis in teaching pedagogy and choreography.

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Engaging your child in extracurricular activities (those “outside of school” activities) is an instinct that comes naturally to most parents. We want to support our children’s development while giving them beneficial outlets for their time and energy.

For many parents and students, the extracurricular activity of choice is dance.

What Does Dance Do for a Child?

While dance can impact each child differently, some outcomes seem universal. Below are some of the top positive benefits dance offers children.

Boosts Confidence

One of the things dance does for a child is increases their confidence. This is true for many extracurricular activities—practice in certain skills brings confidence. However, for dance, it’s even more than that.

Even when you’re dancing someone else’s choreography, dance is personal. It gives you an outlet to bring yourself into the room or onto the stage and say, “this is me.” Practicing this in a safe setting such as dance helps dancers develop and grow their self-confidence.

Improves Fitness

It goes without saying that dance is a physical sport. However, its type of physicality lends itself well to growing children’s bodies. This is because dance not only provides aerobic activity, but also builds and tones muscles, especially those core muscles that support daily movement.

Teaches Teamwork

Dance probably isn’t one of the first activities that comes to mind when you’re thinking of team sports, but dance truly does require this skill.

As part of a dance class or company, children have to rely on the other dancers on stage with them. Each dancer has to be in the right spot and doing the right moves to support the choreography as a whole. For the routine to look synchronized, dancers also have to be at relatively similar levels of expertise.

Dance teaches teamwork because it requires dancers to work together on stage during performances, in rehearsals for staging and practicing choreography, and in developing and mastering techniques alongside their peers.

Encourages Grit

Next on the list of things dance does for a child is encouraging grit. Dance is a commitment—one that extends at least to a several-month-long season and at most to a long-term company relationship. As with every activity, your child will experience times when they want to give up or quit and have to find ways to stay motivated to keep dancing. According to development experts, this skill, called “grit,” is one of the most important indicators of success in children.

If your child is struggling with staying committed to dance, read this recent article on How to Keep Your Child Motivated to Stick With Dance.

Provides Outlet for Expression

Many dancers in their early to late teens face the changes of adolescence that bring a pendulum of emotions. It’s important for them to have an outlet where they feel safe expressing these emotions and helping them to explore and release them instead of bottling them up. For many, dance is an excellent outlet for this.

Drives Discipline

Finally, dance helps children develop discipline. Like many extracurricular activities, dance requires the mastery of certain techniques. This means your child is required to practice certain techniques until they can perform them correctly. This skill means your child will be practicing the skill of discipline.

What has dance done for you or your child?

Did dance help you make friends? Improve other sports skills? Let us know below what dance did for you!

About the Author

Jennie Creer-King

Owner & Artistic Director

Jennie Creer-King is the owner and artistic director of Central Utah Ballet Academy. She is an award-winning dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Among her awards include “Best School Award” by the Youth American Grand Prix, “Best of State” in Choreography and Youth Performing Group, and the Presidential Scholar’s Teacher Recognition Award. Jennie has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance with an emphasis in Ballet Performance and a Master's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance emphasis in teaching pedagogy and choreography.

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How to Keep Your Child Motivated to Stick With Dance

There are many reasons to keep your child motivated to “stick with it,” including helping prevent them from having regret when they’re older, teaching them to focus on long-term gratification instead of short-term whims. Among these is teaching your child the important skill of grit, which is the ability to stick with things even when they get tough—and is one of the biggest indicators of success in children, according to researchers.

While grit and sticking with an activity such as dance may not come naturally to children, it is a skill that can be taught!

1. Tell them they need to follow-through for the season.

Often, a child’s desire to quit is short-lived. Let your child know that dance is a commitment, and they need to stick with it for the season—but that at the end of the season, they can quit if they’d like.

It can be tempting to force them to pick it up again the next season, but allowing them to decide to quit or not quit gives your child autonomy and can help them be less likely to quit or give up on an activity mid-season.

2. Remind them they’re part of a team.

Ballet is a team sport. Your child’s company and studio are depending on them for staging choreography, rehearsing, and progressing at the same level as the rest of the company. Talk to your child about the importance of being part of a team and how each member needs to do his or her part for the entire company to succeed.

3. Don’t give in “just this once.”

It can be tempting to give in and let your child skip a class “just this once.” Especially if they beg or negotiate or if you’re just plain too tired to hold the line. However, it can be important to the goal of helping your child stick with dance lessons not to give in. If you give in once, your child will learn that if they push in just the right way, they can make you give in again.

4. Consider a coupon system.

If you want to be able to give your child a “day off,” consider giving them a single “coupon” good for one day off that they may use once during the season. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. You may be surprised to find this helps cut back in arguments and that your child may not even end up using the coupon by the end of the season.

If you choose to implement this system, it’s important to do so at the very beginning of the dance season and not in response to your dancer asking to skip class (see reason #3 for why).

5. Start a gratefulness practice.

Get your child thinking positively about dance by starting a gratefulness practice. Get a small notebook, and after each class, ask your child to write one thing they are grateful for about their dance lessons. The next time they ask to skip or quit, remind them to pull out their notebook to remember why they are grateful for their dance class.

6. Uncover underlying issues.

Sometimes, students may want to quit dance because they are struggling and are either feeling embarrassed or discouraged. Try to get to the root of why your child doesn’t want to go. Is it more than just wanting a day off? If so, your child may benefit from private ballet lessons or may benefit from extra practice time at home. Talk to your child’s dance teacher about your child’s challenges—they will be able to help you come up with a solution.

7. Model grit at home.

Finally, the best way to motivate your child to stick with ballet when they want to give up is to model commitment and grit at home. Are you prone to starting projects or activities and not finishing them? This can signal to your child that quitting partway through is a natural part of the process. If you fight them on quitting dance, but they see you quitting your projects, you might even set the standard that only grown-ups get to quit, exacerbating the behavior in the future. Instead, do your best to model grit and follow-through at home.

Talk about the challenges you gave when sticking with something, but follow it up with why you’re going to continue the activity anyway. For instance, “Mommy really didn’t want to do her morning run today because I was tired and really wanted to just start my workday. But I made a commitment to myself to complete this marathon training program, and I knew I would feel good after my run—and know how good it will feel to run my first marathon in 3 months. So I decided to go for my run anyway, and 10 minutes in, I was so glad I did because it felt great.”

Like most things, grit is easier said than done, but as your child’s biggest role model, what they see at home can have a huge influence on their behavior now and in the future.

Is your child struggling to stick with dance lessons?

If your Central Utah Ballet student is struggling, let us know! We are here to help.

About the Author

Jennie Creer-King

Owner & Artistic Director

Jennie Creer-King is the owner and artistic director of Central Utah Ballet Academy. She is an award-winning dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Among her awards include “Best School Award” by the Youth American Grand Prix, “Best of State” in Choreography and Youth Performing Group, and the Presidential Scholar’s Teacher Recognition Award. Jennie has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance with an emphasis in Ballet Performance and a Master's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance emphasis in teaching pedagogy and choreography.

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8 (Surprising) Lessons Children’s Ballet Will Teach Your Child

When you sign your child up for children’s ballet, you may be thinking about helping your child pursue his or her passions in dance, getting exercise, or even just getting out of the house for a healthy extracurricular activity.

However, ballet is so much more than that.

Many former dancers will tell you that there are many life skills that they credit to ballet.

8 Benefits of Children’s Ballet

When your child starts children’s ballet, you can expect that they will learn not only classical ballet technique but also life lessons that they can carry with them through adulthood.

1 – Preparation

One of the things your child will learn in ballet is preparation. This goes beyond practicing at home and showing up to class prepared―though that’s important too. Ballet is all about preparation. Before each exercise, your child will make sure their feet are in the proper position, that their muscles are engaged, and that they’re focused on the exercise.

This ability to focus, prepare, and “show up” mentally for a task is one that will follow your child throughout adulthood, helping them to navigate the challenges they’ll face in life.

2 – Grace & Balance

Young children go through a lot of changes as they grow. They transition from bow-legged toddlers to knock-kneed children as their limbs lengthen and their bodies grow.

One of the most impactful things your child will learn in children’s ballet is balance and grace. They learn to engage their mind and muscles while developing strength and control. These lessons will apply not only to their physical movements, but to their emotional ones as well. Your child will learn that they can overcome challenges with strength, fortitude, and the right attitude.

3 – Enjoy Hard Work

Ballet takes discipline and strength. For many children, this is one of the first times they will practice and hone precise physical (and mental) skills. Most children starting children’s ballet have had little exposure to the sport outside seeing ballerinas on tv or on the stage. Your child will learn to find the limits of their bodies and minds and to strengthen themselves to grow past it―and to do so with a smile.

Because ballet, however hard, is fun (especially when you have a great ballet teacher), your child will learn that it can be a positive, rewarding experience to work hard and learn new things.

4 – Teamwork

Another thing your child will learn during children’s ballet is how to work together as a team. Being a ballet dancer requires teamwork. You must learn together with the other dancers, be in sync with your routines, and support each other.

5 – Attention to Detail

A surprising thing your child will learn during their ballet classes is attention to detail. Ballet is all about the details―the angle of the arms or position of the body, spacing from your fellow dancers, timing, and more. And all of this is done without talking. Your child will learn to pick up on visual cues from other dancers, audible cues from the music, and other small details that will help them complete their routines.

6 – Flourishing Under Pressure

Ballet, as well as other performance sports, are important for teaching children to perform under pressure. As much as we want to imagine our children will always be happy, positive, and carefree during their lives, the reality is that they will face stressful situations. Being able to keep their heads and act under pressure is a great skill to learn young to be able to handle challenging situations in the future.

7 – Accepting Feedback

It’s important for children and adults alike to be able to accept feedback and to learn from their mistakes―as well as the mistakes of others. Ballet is a challenging sport and requires discipline and precision. Your child will be receiving feedback from their teachers and will watch other children receiving the same. They’ll learn that not only is feedback normal, it’s an important part of the learning process.

Worried about your child’s ability to accept criticism? That’s all the more reason to register your child in ballet! A great ballet teacher takes cues from a child’s behavior and actions and is able to gently ease them into receiving criticism more openly.

8 – Respect for Themselves and Others

Your child will also learn respect for themselves and others. Children’s ballet is usually less strict than teen or company ballet and is more strict than preschool or toddler ballet. Your child is learning to respect the etiquette of the class and to respect their process of learning and progress in the classroom. They’ll learn to respect the other dancers in their journey of learning as well as learning to respect their teacher.

Final Thoughts

There are so many wonderful reasons for your child to take ballet. If you’re interested in learning more about our programs or would like to register your child, please reach out! We would love to speak with you.

About the Author

Jennie Creer-King

Owner & Artistic Director

Jennie Creer-King is the owner and artistic director of Central Utah Ballet Academy. She is an award-winning dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Among her awards include “Best School Award” by the Youth American Grand Prix, “Best of State” in Choreography and Youth Performing Group, and the Presidential Scholar’s Teacher Recognition Award. Jennie has a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance with an emphasis in Ballet Performance and a Master's Degree from the University of Utah School of Dance emphasis in teaching pedagogy and choreography.

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