I’m a hands-off sort of parent. I don’t believe in doing things for my kids, preferring they figure it out themselves. It makes for frustrating times, but the payoff when it clicks is well worth it. Ilia’s been in swim class for 6 weeks now. The first couple of weeks, was her just getting used to being wet. She’s a stubborn one and doesn’t pay attention to my directions at all. So, there were a lot of tears and frustrations on both our parts. Eventually, it clicked and she was willing to explore more. The brightest day was when she learned the backstroke. She’s a natural at it, even her instructor was impressed by the form and quickness. Still, she was wearing the swim belt.
As we walked toward the building, on Tuesday, Ilia turned to me said, “I’m going to swim without the swim belt today.” I smiled, “That would be wonderful”, I replied. To my shock, once we got to the pool, she jumped into the water and started doing something she had been unable or unwilling to do before: She swam. She kicked her feet, face in the water, and moved. WOW! I can not even begin to explain how proud of this stubborn yet scared little girl just getting it. She wants to continue. She wants to learn to dive. She wants to compete.
The She’s a swimmer now by Anika Malone, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.