Kids are often some of the bravest people. Now, that doesn’t mean that they don’t have any fears, they just seem to overcome them a bit quicker than adults. We, sometimes, just don’t get around to it.
Regardless of age, one of the best ways to try and overcome fear is having someone show you how it’s done. Once we see someone else performing the task fearlessly and without any hiccups, we’re more apt to go for it ourselves.
That’s exactly what happened for 4-year-old Dylan Stich of Canton, Ohio. Like many kids, Stitch enjoyed his time in the swimming pool but he just couldn’t seem to overcome his fear of jumping in from the diving board. No matter how many floaties he had attached to him.
“He had no interest in it, ever,” his mother, Marla, told CBS Evening News reporter, Steve Hartman.
But things would take a turn when a 95-year-old great grandfather, Daniel Biss, overheard family and friends trying to coax Dylan into jumping into the pool one day during a family gathering.
“He just wouldn’t go,” Daniel says with a laugh.
Daniel is a World War II and Korean War Air Force veteran. So, he knows a thing or two about fear and overcoming challenges.
“[He] just needed some convincing, I guess,” he says with a smile.
Daniel thought that he just might be the man for the job. But he wasn’t interested in talking Dylan from the diving board and into the water. Instead, he wanted to show him.
In a video, Daniel is helped onto the diving board by a man and a woman. He even has a cane he uses to support himself when walking and to help with balance.
But Daniel is determined. The last time he was on a diving board was 50 years ago.
“This is a miracle!” one boy yells.
Once he makes it to the end of the diving board and the man and woman have stepped away, he almost loses his balance and falls off. Onlookers hold their breaths as the woman runs back to prevent this from happening.
“Oh, Jesus!” a woman can be heard saying.
“Everyone kinda like, held their breath, and got real nervous, like ‘oh, is this a bad idea?'” Marla says.
But Daniel wasn’t worried at all.
“I was up there that far I figured I may as well go through with it,” Daniel says.
Go through with it he did. He dove off the diving board for Dylan. And when he does, everybody celebrates. It’s a celebration of emotions — relieved and astonished. The nervewracking part was over but the best was yet to come.
After Daniel took his dive, Dylan stepped out onto the diving board with a man waiting in the pool to catch him. Dylan can’t stop moving his hands as he’s incredibly nervous. But he wouldn’t be outdone at his family gathering.
For the first time, Dylan leapt off the board and into the water.
“It was really neat that that inspired him to do it,” Marla said. “It was a neat moment.”
Today, Dylan jumps into the pool from the diving board with no problem. Sometimes all we need is someone to show us how it’s done.
You can watch Dylan and Daniel dive into the pool in the video below!
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