From the Podcast: Raising Confident Kids Without Fear-Based Teaching

There's a moment Leslie Kuny describes that's kind of hard to shake.

A kid standing in front of a mirror. A teacher behind them. A room full of other kids watching. And underneath all of that, a child trying to figure out if they're okay.

Leslie has been teaching dance for over 20 years and owns Absolute Motion Performance and Dance. She's seen both sides of what can happen in that kind of environment, and she's made some pretty deliberate choices about how she runs her studio because of it.

The old way "worked" but at a cost.

Dance has a long history of strict, fear-based teaching. Be tough, point out mistakes, push harder. And sure, you can get results that way. But Leslie is really direct about what else you get: kids who second-guess themselves constantly, kids who tie their self-worth to how they look, kids who quietly fall out of love with something they used to love and then quit.

The thing that stuck with me is something she said about kids not separating feedback from identity. When an adult in a position of authority tells a child to fix something over and over, the kid doesn't just hear a correction. They hear that something about them needs fixing, and that stays with them.

She talked about how many adults she's met who remember being scared of their dance teacher as a kid and how that fear didn't make them better dancers. It just made them smaller.

What actually works better

Leslie's approach is different, and she's clear that it doesn't mean lowering the bar. Her kids are good dancers. She just gets there differently.

In her studio, that looks like focusing on what a student's body can do instead of what it can't. Celebrating effort loudly when something finally clicks. Framing goals as "this is what success looks like for this skill" rather than "here's everything you're doing wrong." And building enough trust that kids are motivated because they want to be, not because they're scared of what happens if they're not.

She also shared with us how she talks about bodies. When a kid says something negative about their stomach or their legs, her instinct is to immediately redirect to strength. She'll say something like, "That's your torso... it's so strong, look at what it does for you." Taking it away from appearance and reminding them of their capability. She said that one shift would have changed a lot for her as a young dancer, and she knows it matters for her students now.

Dance has always had a complicated relationship with body image. Mirrors everywhere, a prescribed dress code that doesn't leave much to hide behind, authority figures whose opinions carry a lot of weight. Leslie called it "a cauldron of disaster" for preteens and teens who are already navigating so much.

She's thoughtful about it in ways a lot of studios aren't. Matching tights and shoes to skin tone. Being careful about how food and bodies get talked about by the adults in the room and by the kids themselves. And she had some honest advice for parents too: pay attention to what your kid is saying about themselves at home, and watch how they talk about food. And if you're a parent, be aware of how you model those things, because kids are picking it up whether you realize it or not.

Why play matters more than we think

One of the more interesting things Leslie brought up is that kids today are struggling with unstructured movement in a way they didn't used to. She'll do an improv game in class, just move however you want, there's no wrong answer. And some kids genuinely don't know what to do. They want to do it right. They're self-conscious in a way that five-year-olds didn't used to be.

So she keeps play in her studio intentionally. Kids who are allowed to be silly and take risks also perform better. They loosen up. They try things. Joy is part of the learning experience.

What this means if you work with kids (or are raising one)

This conversation isn't really just about dance. It's about what happens when kids are around adults who either build them up or chip away at them and how the environment around a child shapes who they become.

Leslie said something toward the end of our conversation that is an important reminder. She said kids get one childhood. And the adults around them help write their internal voice during that time.

That's a lot of responsibility. But it's also a real opportunity.

This is from my full conversation with Leslie Kuny, owner of Absolute Motion Performance and Dance, on the Wait, Am I Saving the World? podcast. We go deeper into all of this, confidence, body image, what to look for in a studio, and why the way we teach kids matters long after the lesson is over.

🎙 Listen Here

Find Leslie on Instagram at @lesliekuny and check out her own podcast, Dancing Through It, on YouTube at Leslie Kuny Dance.