Tiny dancer...

It's not unusual to have dancers coming into the studio to learn to sing, usually because there's a musical they want to try out for.  My youngest singer in the studio currently is one.  She is only 13, but has been in dance training for years and has been participating in childrens' theater musicals for almost two years.  She is my tiny dancer :).
In her first lesson, we talked about the difference between a dancer's body balance and a singer's body balance. Dancers are taught to think in shapes, have a developed kinesthetic sense of their large muscle movement and strong core muscles.  However, the stance usually adopted by dancers, with an exaggerated arch to the back, doesn't allow for good diaphragmatic movement on inhalation.  Most dancers are emotionally attached to their dancing and their dancer's stance, so I didn't want to address a change in balance with my tiny dancer that negated her dancer's stance, but that offered an alternative for singing.  We talked about breathing muscles and structures and how they work and then experimented with breathing.  Luckily for singing teachers, a good, deep breath is instantly rewarding to a student.  As she explored her new breathing, her body naturally started to come more into balance to accommodate the diaphragmatic movement.  I then had her move back and forth between a singer's balance and a dancer's balance, until she was clear on the difference.  Of course, her body started incorporating the more core-oriented "singer's" balance into her dancer's stance without her noticing, because our bodies like to be able to breathe, and she will be a stronger dancer as a result.