Being brave in uncharted territory

There is sometimes a thin line between naïveté and wisdom. I am learning that from my 3-year-old daughter.

Here is a recent exchange we shared:

“I’m so proud of you! You were awesome!”

“I wasn’t awesome. I was brave!”

She had just completed the first of six “survival” swimming classes. Her excitement about the classes was palpable since waking up the morning before. Her first lesson was supposed to take place on Monday and all of Monday morning she talked about it with an eagerness that surprised me. Unfortunately, it was canceled due to rain.

This only fueled her enthusiasm. By the time we got in the car to head to her first class on Tuesday, I practically had a pit in my stomach. With every bit of excitement she expressed, I grew more and more anxious. I remember taking swimming lessons as a child. I learned how to swim, but the process wasn’t so much fun. I remember kids crying and screaming, terrified to leave the arms of their parents and get in the water with the teacher.

Part of me wanted to brace my daughter. I wanted to tell her straight up: you might cry. You might be scared. You might get water in your eyes. But for some reason, I resisted that urge. I just shared her excitement with her and hoped for the best.

I am so glad I didn’t steal her joy. The lesson happened like a dream. She marched to the pool with a big smile, anxious for her turn to jump in with the teacher. And every time it was her turn to swim, she spent a few seconds underwater floundering, broke through the surface with a few coughs and a look of surprise, and then quickly found her smile again. She didn’t cry once.

How different would the lesson have been if I took her self-confidence for naïveté? If I had spent the car ride over letting her know that kids might cry and that she would get her hair wet, but that she shouldn’t be nervous or scared, how would it have affected her experience? Maybe it would have gone in one ear and out the other, no harm done. But maybe those words would have added fear to the equation and made her hesitant to swim. The instinct was to protect, but those words of warning may have done more harm than good.

How often do we do this to our kids, our spouses, our friends, ourselves? Managing expectations has a very practical purpose, but does it cut down self-esteem and almost guarantee an average outcome? I don’t know. And I imagine the answer is different depending on the scenario.

What I do know is that children are often much wiser than we give them credit for. And that the next time I go into uncharted territory, I will follow her example and be brave, clinging to hope and eagerness rather than the potential negative.

Natalia Naman Temesgen is an independent contractor. Contact her at nntemesgen@gmail.com.

This story was originally published June 11, 2016 at 2:46 PM with the headline "Being brave in uncharted territory."