Dance Moms, first filmed in 2011, is famous for Abby Lee Miller’s “Pyramid”. 

Nearly every week, Abby would present the dancers and their mothers with a pyramid to show who needed to improve and who was performing well. The pyramid changed every week, but it was often a competition to get on top. 

Maddie Ziegler, one of Abby’s strongest dancers, was often on the top. This was a huge point of tension between the dance moms and even fans. Maddie was on top of the pyramid over 61 times throughout the show, significantly more than the other dancers. 

Chloe Lukasiak, one of the other dancers featured in Dance Moms said that it (the pyramid) was not a normal thing to do. 

“Let’s rank children and tell them how horrible they are,” Lukasiak said. 

The pyramid is harmful to young dancers and promotes an unhealthy environment.

Ranking children, whether it is on a pyramid or not, is harmful. Every child should be seen as an individual, and be seen for their strengths and talents. In an article from Clever Kit discussing how the negative aspects of ranking kids, it says, “Imagine a handful of corn in a pan. They are all heated at the same temperature, under the same conditions, yet each one explodes into popcorn at different rates.” 

This is very similar to children, not everyone will have the same strengths and perform the same. 

In Dance Moms, each girl very clearly had their strengths and weaknesses, and they were labeled not based on those, but based on who won first place. 

I strongly believe that the dancers would have thrived and had much more confidence if they didn’t feel as if they had to constantly compete with one another to be on top of the pyramid.