Kids Facing Fears

This past weekend, I had some great moments as a dad.

My girls have chosen to focus on ballet so that’s what we’ve done for 6 years now. I’m happy with that and they are great at it. I enjoy supporting them, going to performances, watching our 1 or 2 parent allowed practices per year. But that’s really all they’ve done.

I’m a sports guy. I thought my kids would play volleyball. I played forever, coached and was expecting that’s where my kids would go. Well, our first is tiny. So that wasn’t a great fit. Their cousins do sports though. Soccer, basketball, softball. Chess too. And they’ve seen them win many trophies and ribbons never to get one themselves.

Well Heather put the girls in swim team this summer. It’s been a long while since they’ve swam so they were a bit rusty. And while this is rec swim team, they pretty much just throw them in & have them swim laps.

With the first week, we had some struggles. Some tears, some hesitancy to get in the pool, some extended kickboarding instead of the featured stroke. They pulled through though. And they have swim meets as well. The first swim meet was this past Saturday. I figured it’d be good for them. Everybody gets a ribbon. Be good practice at confronting their fears.

I bribed them with a 5 money each (that’s #mrlee code for $5) and an ice blended drink from the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf. Our little one only had to do the 25m event. 1 length. She can definitely do it but she was very nervous. I wanted our oldest to do both the 25m and 50m events. She was eager to do the 25m.

Well when we got there, we were fish out of water. We saw all these parents with chairs, ice chests, shade covers. Totally unprepared. And then when warmups started, they started doing many laps. Not good for my middle one. I’d basically told her she just had to do 1 length. She did get in and do 50m of warm up. But that was it. Opted out of the diving off the blocks practice too.

When time came for her event, she did it. Though she was nervous, she was a trooper. Dove off the blocks. Swam her length and came in 5th out of 8. Got her ribbon & was quite happy. Couldn’t get her to do the 50m event but I think it was still a major win for her.

The oldest did her 25m event & loved it. She didn’t really want to do the 50m but stepped up & did that as well. She didn’t do as well finish wise as her 25m event but I told her I was much more proud of her because it was tough & she faced her fear. Got a little choked up there myself.

At times they were a bit let down they didn’t finish higher but we had to remind them that some of these kids swim as much as they dance. They got it then.

Anyway, it was pretty cool for me. No concern about finish or winning (which is against my nature). Just doing something different for fitness and for the experience. Both girls pushed themselves and accomplished more than they’d expected.

Proud day for dad. :)

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