Kiddipedia
In the spirit of the moment I’ve come to realise there are so many life lessons the Olympics can teach children.
Here’s a few that come to mind:
- The World Around Us
In our technology driven world, where children are becoming increasingly insular and introverted, it’s a great opportunity to take their focus away from their devices (tablet / iPhone / playstation) for a while to look up and around to take notice the wider World we are collectively part of.
Hopefully your children are, as much as possible, isolated from mainstream media coverage of anything remotely terror related. The Olympics is a great opportunity to teach children how the world has positively come together, in unison. Hopefully the positive perspective and understanding that the world is collectively united will stay with them, something we all long for.
Olympics is great opportunity to teach children about Geography also. If you have an Atlas, or Globe, I’d suggest getting it out and each day pick a couple countries that you can talk about at home.
Geography can be taught through the stomach also, maybe when picking the countries to discuss you can make dinner time fun by cooking something simple from that countries cuisine, over dinner you could discuss topics about that country.
Depending on the age of your children you can teach them about each of the Flags also.
For older children you could make a fun game out of it. Run a memory test / competition at the end of the games to see who can remember the most amount of Flags, you included. This is equally a great refresher for us adults too.
- Team work
There is nothing quite like witnessing team spirit in its truest form than during the Olympics.
The images of pure emotion can resonate and stick with us for life. How else can you teach children what the essence of what teamwork really is than watching the games.
Even for individual medalists they are working to an overall goal tally.
Everyone’s doing their bit to help.
- Working towards achieving a goal
I think modern lifestyle has made us really impatient, we all want convenience , efficiency and results – fast.
As we know the Olympic Games come around every four years known as Quadrennial. Athletes work hard over a long time to achieve their goals. This demonstrates to children that you have to stay committed to achieving your goals, and not to give up.
I think we all would agree that it’s important to teach children that winning isn’t everything also.
Win or lose the spirit of the games is key.
Overcoming challenges is another great lesson the games teaches, especially when watching the Paralympics, the Paralympic athletes demonstrates the true strength of human spirit and how perseverance and determination can overcome adversity.
Above all I think the games teaches us all the power of self belief and how important it is to always believe in yourself.
- Patriotism
Multiculturalism has become so engrained in our society, the Olympics is a great opportunity to identify what it ‘really’ means to be an Aussie!
To be proud of being Australian!
Let’s face it, we really are the lucky country. We just confident enough in our ability that we don’t feel we have to tell everyone about it.
- History:
The opening Ceremony was a history lesson within itself.
What better way to learn about history than with the spectacle with lights and music.
Its great to teach also that Olympic rings represent 5 world continents, Africa, Asia, America, Europe and Oceania and colours represent at least one colour from each counties flag.
- Global warming and how to help
It was great to see the focus the opening ceremony placed on global warming, also asking athletes to plant a “seeds of hope” into little growing tubes.
As our generation has inherited much of this issue so too have our children, if anything they will encounter greater challenges than we have.
Education is key and encouraging positive habits that can make change where possible.
Teaching children great habits from an early age will help, not only their generation, but generations to come.
i.e.
-reduce waste and recycle
-buy better light bulbs
-invest in energy efficient appliances
Love to know your thoughts and if there is anything else you believe the Olympic games teaches children.
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