What age to start dance lessons?

[e_p]

I started dancing at age 4 and continued until I was 18 I can't wait to have children so they can try dance too - I hope they love it as much as I did!

At that age, there isn't so much emphasis on learning actual moves...moreso focus on fun, rhythm, music, coordination etc...I really don't think your girls will be disadvantaged if you put it off for a few years. They would benefit similarly from you putting on some music and dancing with them at home, watching and mimiking DVDs with dancing (Hi5, Wiggles etc). I have friends who are working as professional dancers and didn't take up dance classes until late primary/early high school...if they have a love for it and a natural sense of rhythm and coordination, they'll be fine

[Rouge]

My DD started ballet at 3, and people often commented she still has the poise of a dancer. And she only did it for 2 years. But she had a blast.

[deletedit]

We don't have dance lessons per se out here, but Child Elder started calisthenics when she was about 5, which seems pretty standard. They had a class below for kindy age kids.

She turned out to be horrendously uncoordinated and totally useless at following instructions, so my kid turned out to be THAT kid put riiiiight at the back of the group doing twirls the opposite way to all the other kids 10 seconds late while the other 20 or so kids were all doing just fine. She is academically very bright and used to being the center of attention so she absolutely hated calisthenics and ended up being very upset and begging to quit. They've put her in the dark back corner of every dancy thing she's been in for school since then too, usually with the excuse she's tall but its pretty obvious the real reason. There's always one and *someone* has to be their mother ...

Fastforward 3 years and one of her friends does calisthenics, so she has selective memory and thought she was brilliant at it and wants to join up again and is ****ed at me that I won't let her.

She's fine doing freestyle disco dancing though - the boys love her So in her head she's a fantastic dancer and always has been ...