We took the kids to the neighborhood pool on Sunday and Hallie happened to meet a classmate there from one of her earlier grades. He’s an African-American boy who came to the pool with his grandfather and his cousins. These kids all were hanging around the shallow end and seemed to be hungry for some activity, so in between games of tag with my own kids, I wandered over to them and said hello.
Hallie’s classmate was friendly and wanted to play tag, too, but during one such tagging expedition he abruptly stopped.
“I can’t go that far,” he said solemnly. “I can’t swim.”
“Well,” I said. “You can float, can’t you?”
I decided I would pretend to know something about teaching swimming and help him a bit with his swimming. I showed him how he could float on his back. He eagerly stretched out in the water and floated beautifully. With a few of those under his belt, I worked with him on holding his breath. He happily did this, too, extending his time underwater from 5 seconds to 13 seconds.
His cousins soon took note of the fun and soon I was surrounded, with kids all clamoring for me to time them while they dunked their heads underwater. I felt like some sort of pool pied piper! I grinned at Kelly as I helped this crowd of kids with their swimming. It was a blast, and really something to see the kids take pride in their own achievements.
Afterward, it made me think of all the other ways that just a little mentoring could help kids who could really use some love and attention. It doesn’t take a lot: just an opportunity to show them you care. There are too many kids on this side of town who could really use this kind of mentoring, too.
The whole “it takes a village” thing is absolutely true. It feels wonderful to help somebody out.