Encouraging Words

There are a few skills in life that must be learned at a young age. Since it's way too cold to teach the kids how to ride a bike, we've concentrated on teaching the kids how to swim and in Juliette's case how to ski downhill. At Juliette's last swimming class the teacher put a pole in the deep end of the pool in a vertical position so that it was touching the bottom. He then asked each child to use their hands to propel themselves as far down as they could go. Juliette saw some of the children eagerly plunge under the water to various depths and when it came to her turn refused to go. While the kids were taking their second turn I encouraged her with words to convincer her that she was a great swimmer and if those kids could do it she could do it too. Normally when I've encouraged Juliette in the past to do something (see ballet) it doesn't have much effect. But this time she agreed to give it a try. I was expecting a little bob but apparently she had completely forgotten her previous fear and proceeded to plunge herself down to the floor of the pool to a depth of 9Ft. I was surprised, impressed and incredibly proud all at once. She's still not swimming lengths in the pool but after all she is only 4 years old. Nicholas was there watching the whole thing and part of me would like to believe he was impressed as well. After lessons we had free swim in a smaller pool where we played freeze tag with other kids and Nicholas practiced his kicking and ball throwing. Preparing for the swim and the post swim activities are a logistic hell but the time in the pool with the kids is priceless.