Our younger son Harrison (6 at the time) had his first experience of a swimming carnival representing his Joeys Den at the Townsville Scouts Swimming Carnival in February of this year. Having had him in swimming lessons (at Paul Sadler Swimland) for several years we were keen to see him do well but really just wanted him to enjoy himself. Hubby (Maj Jeff Delgado) had typically been on deployment or on exercise for our older son’s swimming carnivals so this was a first for Jeff as well. For Harrison’s age group the race was a novelty 15m swim and he had no problems with that distance and came first. We were pretty keen for him to do more and having shown himself to be an accomplished swimmer our Den were keen to have him join the Cubs Under 8’s 4-person relay team as they were missing a swimmer. We quickly explained to Harrison what a relay race was and it was decided he would go last and this would give him a chance to see how it works. The race started and the team did a great job but when it came to Harrison’s turn they were in last place. I was concerned this would put too much pressure on him but with great swimming training, coupled with his ‘Joey’ determination, he powered through his lap and we couldn’t believe it when he took the team from last place to first place in the space of one lap. His team were stunned, we were ecstatic and Harry was so proud of himself. He came up to us afterwards and out of the blue said “well, that really made the cost of all those swimming lessons worthwhile”. Straight out of the mouth of babes! Like most parents we initially put our boys into swimming lessons for the survival aspect, but have found so many more benefits such as instilling an absolute love of the water, improving social skills and self esteem. I guess we can now we can add sporting successes to the list!