We all want our kids to be safe and grow up to be effective, productive people in the world.
But during the chaos of Covid lockdowns, it sometimes felt like we couldn’t do both at the same time.
Everyone sacrificed, but children were particularly susceptible to suffering emotional problems from the combination of lockdowns, online learning and social distancing.
Luckily, there is a great way for children to overcome the setbacks in social development and the anxiety that were possibly caused by the Covid crisis. It turns out that speech and drama lessons are great ways for many children to recover from stress and become confident young people.
Improving Self-Confidence
One of the clearest ways speech and drama lessons help children (especially now) is by building confidence.
Speech and drama lessons create a safe space for children to express themselves. Through practice and encouragement, they learn how to perform in front of large groups of people — something even many adults can’t bear to do themselves.
This is so important for any child, but it’s especially critical as we emerge from the social isolation and anxiety-inducing protocols of Covid. Speech and drama can help kids not only get back to normal, but to become even more assured and socially capable than ever before.
Increasing Respect and Manners
Children learn by experience. And without the regular experience of in-person interactions with their peers, it can become difficult for them to gain all the soft skills that adults take for granted. While distance learning was an important safety measure during Covid lockdowns, it did cause an experiential gap for kids.
Speech and drama lessons are a great way to rapidly build (or re-build) those soft skills, like respectful communication and manners.
How? The shared activity of performing in front of each other builds mutual respect naturally — every student is taking instruction and then carrying out the things they’ve learned in front of others. They also have to learn how to work together, requiring them to gradually pick up on subtle social cues and the expectations other students and their teacher each have have about ‘good behaviour’.
Get Back to Having Fun
Speech and drama lessons are, at their heart, a form of play. And when children play, they learn. Kids don’t just figure out what to do or how to do it — they get to activate their imagination and interact with one another. It’s a dynamic environment where children draw from their own creative minds, to share and perform with one another.
That joy at the center of speech and drama lessons is crucial for children to have fulfilling and rich experiences; experiences that are both fun right now and rewarding in the long term.
After two long years of Covid quarantining and social distancing, kids need to have fun together again. In getting back to playful activities with other children, they reconnect with the importance of getting along with others, using their imagination and enjoying being who they are.
Feeling Accomplished
Staying inside for so long has us all wanting to go out and accomplish something. Children feel the same way.
Speech and drama lessons are a great way to give children a sense of accomplishment. Performing, acting, and playing games in front of people takes preparation, practice and self-confidence. That’s a vital combination of character-based skills for people of all ages — and our kids could really use more of them right now.
After all, accomplishing something not only gives children practice in being productive people, it also gives them a feeling of agency in the world.
Speech and Drama Lessons Can Solve the Lockdown Blues
So many of us have had a hard couple of years, and many of us are worried that our kids have missed out on a lot of good memories.
But there is a possible solution! Speech and drama lessons can bring children a lot of great social experiences and teach them important lessons.
Not only that — but they are a lot of fun, too.
Consider enrolling your child into speech and drama lessons. Perhaps they’re just what’s needed to help melt the lockdown blues away…
