Jenna Bush Hager Admits She Was Scared to Watch Son, 3, Learn to Swim in the Ocean: 'Closed My Eyes'

Hannah Sacks
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"I actually just closed my eyes and let him handle it. Cause I don't want to be a backseat parent," she said of letting husband Henry teach Hal

<p>Jenna Bush Hager/Instagram, Nathan Congleton/NBC via Getty</p>

Jenna Bush Hager's son is growing up!

On Monday's episode of Today with Hoda & Jenna, Bush Hager, 41, chatted with co-host Hoda Kotb, 58, about how her son Hal learned to swim while on a family vacation.

"Hal learned to swim!" Bush Hager shared of her 3-year-old son. "He swam to that dock, but on Henry's back. That's an ocean..."

"Wait a minute...the fact that he's out there?" Kotb said. "I know, believe me." Bush Hager replied.

"Were you scared?" Kotb asked. When Bush Hager replied affirmatively, Kotb continued, "Letting your child do scary things supervised is the hardest thing as a grown-up."

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Bush Hager shares her three kids — Mila, 10, Poppy, 7, and Hal, 3 — with her husband Henry Chase Hager.

"I actually just closed my eyes and let him handle it. Cause I don't want to be a backseat parent," Bush Hager noted.

"Our friend Maria Shriver told me one of the things she did when she was parenting was, as long as the kids were safe and supervised, she made sure that they were in situations that feel scary cause they're new — swimming in the ocean — all the time," Kotb said.

"'You're fine, you're floating.' Not 'Are you okay? Are you okay?' To let them not feel the fear in that age, because that will go on and through life," she explained.

"Yeah because you're always supervised with bubble wrap on you, you're never going to feel out of your comfort zone," Bush Hager replied.

"She was saying, 'No, they're fine. Everybody's fine. Everybody get on the inner tube, we're going to pull you, you're fine,'" Kotb continued.

"That's what my dad did too," shared Bush Hager.

"See, that's why you're fearless. That's why you jump out of planes!" Kotb exclaimed. "That's why you don't care if someone says, 'Can you do that? You say, 'Yes, I can do it.' We gotta do that."

"But I'm less like Maria and my dad and a little bit more worried. But then I just keep my mouth shut. You can hide things deep down inside!" Bush Hager concluded.

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