Swim Camps

Over the break, my wife signed our 7 year old daughter E and 5 year old son C up for swim camp. It’s a half day camp spaced out over the week so the kids can have activities, meet some new friends, and to give us a break (mainly the latter or the former two depending on who you ask).

The day before camp started, C got sick and we needed to pull him out. Then E started to get nervous about camp since she wouldn’t have her little brother there. We had a few conversations to get her ready for camp and on the first day, she was struggling.

E was so sad to go to camp by herself. She was moping all the way to drop off and had her head down when I signed her in. The kids were huddled up in their own groups so E didn’t want to try and introduce herself. The instructor asked if she wanted to play with her and E said no, threw her hoodie over her head, and waved goodbye to me. She looked so sad.

I left her to go to work and saw that I dropped her shoes in the parking lot. It was in a colorful bag, which is how I recognized it. I went back in there and ran into C’s friends. They were going to swim camp too, so I was relieved. When I got in there, E was so happy to see familiar friends of her little brother and she was excited (and so was I!).

When I went to pick her up at the end of the day, it turned out that C’s friends were in a different camp, but E still had the best time because she met some new friends. One of her friends is from artistic swimming classes that they both attended. E was so excited to go back the next day and the rest of the week. It all ended up working out!

As a parent, it’s hard for me to watch and know that my kids are going to struggle doing something. Even though they will, I need to try and resist the urge to unnaturally fix the situation for them. They need to be comfortable being uncomfortable and through that, they can be more adaptable and resilient. They can also hope for the best and have good outcomes and lucky for us, it happened this go around!