10 ways to encourage young children in artistic expression

Young children often have difficulty communicating their feelings due to their smaller vocabularies and inexperience with new emotions. By encouraging children to dance and move to music we can look for clues to how they feel and help them name the emotions for future use. "Through dance, emotions are accessed and then released through expressive movement and a positive transformation takes place within, facilitating the overall well being of the child," says Dr. Lori Baudino of the dance and music therapy program at UCLA.