7 Benefits of Taking Children to the Theatre
As parents we should really look on taking our kids to the theatre as much more than just a fun treat or Family day out. As exposing our kids to live shows offers them many benefits and has been suggested by experts to be good for children’s development.
You may have taken your little one to a Christmas Panto, which is a fab variety style show for kids, or you may have taken them to a Summertime Play, or ballet show. All these theatre shows can offer our kids so much.
Maybe so far you have never thought of taking your little one to the theatre or you only go once in a blue moon. Well, you might want to read on and see how these Top reasons of Why Theatre is Good for Children and offers much more than creating some magical family memories.
7 Benefits of Taking Children to the Theatre
Improves Social Skills
Stories are a safe way for children to learn and understand human emotions and its through stories that children start to learn empathy, which is quite often a hard skill for them to learn.
Theatre storytelling can expose children to emotions more effectively than reading storybooks can. It can bring to life dramatic and distressing issues, presenting children with emotions they may not have experience in real life, such as love, friendship, bullying, violence or experiencing death all in a fun, safe environment and without consequences.
Improves Life Skills
When a child attends a theatre show the experience can massively expand their imagination. It can boost their creativity and expose them to some fab literacy and grow their historical knowledge (depending on if it’s a historical type of shows your go to of course)
Increases Opportunities to Discuss Difficult Subjects
Some children can find it hard to talk about certain things, often struggling to find a way to bring a subject up to discuss. By exposing children to different and possibly difficult story lines it can bridge a conversation starting point for a child to express their feelings or concerns about that subject by talking about what they have just watched, giving a way for new discussions about subjects that can be otherwise tricky to bring up.
Improve Language Skills
Theatre is all about storytelling and storytelling helps a child improve their communication and language skills. By exposing your child to theatre shows, it can for sure help them to communicate better.
Improve Family Bond and Relationships
It doesn’t matter if you take your child to a live panto show, play or musical all theatre trip can be a great family day out away from daily lives, giving perfect one to one time to bond and build on relationships as you share laughter and experience something new together.
Allows Healthy Escape from the Real World
Theatre is a fab way to put a child’s mind at rest, as it whisks them away to a fantasy world absorbing them in the storyline that will allow them to take a break from their own life’s stresses and worries. No matter what age your child is they all need time to chill out and escape their own challenges for that day.
Allows a Healthy Break from Technology
This can be a benefit to the parents as well as the children to be fair! Seem a bit novel in today’s age but Enjoying life in Real Life is important to our souls. We all need a break from technology reminding us of what’s real, take photos with your eyes and mind rather than seeing life through a camera lens. For older children / teenagers a break from technology will help improve self-worth, if they are on social media seeing real life people reminds them what the word looks like unfiltered and unedited! Its also a grand chance to let the stress levels come down because you can’t level up in your fav game!
Top Tips for Taking Kids to the Theatre
- Don’t be put off taking your child to a Theatre Show based on your fear of how they will act. They will act like most children will, so here are a few Top Tips to ease your worry of taking your child to theatre.
- First off Pick the right show to take your child to. An Opera all in Italian late in the evening last like 2hours plus, may not be the best introduction to theatre for them lol!. Pick a Family Focused Show
- Most Family Shows will give you an idea of what age range they are aimed at and therefore last an appropriate length of time, but just double check the running time and pick one that is suitable for your child.
- Toddlers and Pre-schoolers will love shows that have loads of opportunities for participation and lasts around 30 - 50 minutes
- Older School age children will enjoy a longer children’s shows lasting around an hour to an hour and a half.
- Remember Family audiences at family shows that are specifically created for children will expect some noise and wiggling as part and parcel of the experience, so don’t stress yourself out and expect your child to sit motionless and in complete silence!
- Something to keep any eye out for is that many shows actually offer a relaxed performance, and these are designed for audiences that would benefit from a more relaxed environment, including (but not limited to) those with autistic spectrum conditions, anyone with sensory and communication disorders or learning-disabled people. You may feel these style shows would be a good starting point for your family.
For some families visiting theatre shows can be an expensive activity and we do try and list as many Theatre shows that we can that are either Free or Running a Discounted Ticket Price in on What’s On Section.
Although you might find it useful to get in touch or look at your local theatres website, as they often do offers like buy 3 show tickets and get 4th free, or they have Loyalty cards which you can sign up for and build up credit that they give you back on your next purchase and some theatres even have the chance for you to purchase tickets using time credits, so it might be worth exploring the options for your family.
