I have had these two scenarios on my head and both have been disturbing:

My son and I are on a Boeing 777-300ER. The captain together with his/her flight crew are all flat out and the announcement on the intercom goes “we are initiating emergency landing procedures”. This is as a result of multiple engine failure, cabin pressurization issues, alarm alert on the landing gear. Never mind that at the start of the flight, there was a delay on take off resulting from problems with reverse thrusters.

My son is in a baby pool trying to swim. The pool depth is barely 94 cm deep. He is having the fun of it and hardly notices when he has slowly drifted to the deep end of the pool. He runs of “thrust” and can’t propel himself out of the pool. He slowly begins to drown.

In both cases, as a father, I am left thinking what I should do to ensure safety and comfort of my son.

I can bet you my 2019 annual salary that I would find it easier to rescue my son on the first case of a looming plane crash. Swimming is the most scariest thing I have encountered.

Today I am chilling under this cozy patio on a swimming pool bed just watching a dad train his son how to swim. This is a marvel to me. What interests me is not really the swimming, but the diligence with which this dad is handling this budding swimmer. I have observed 3 salient things:

1. The coach dived deep into the water water and stayed under, swam across the pool for a moment. And came out full breathe. All this as the young lad was watching [I do it, you see]

2. The coach and the trainee were both in the water. Most of the time, the coach was slowing himself to help the trainee. Occasionally he would push the lad hard and be on standby to “rescue” the lad (stretch goals to grow the trainee). The kid would yell to get out. But the coach would buy less of that [We do it Together].

3. After a moment of training, the coach let go the lad to be on his own. Occasionally coming in to remind of the tips and tricks of holding breathe, flexibility, maneuvering among others. This, I could see, was building the confidence of the lad [Do it as I see].

A father acting as a coach to his son ought to be willing to paint the big picture goals, guide the son through the path to success whilst allowing for occasional making of mistakes. I have to be patient to allow my son to be while I coach him to what I want him to be