How Have You Talked With Your Kids About the Olympics?
How Have You Talked With Your Kids About the Olympics?
It's a treasure trove of opportunity.
I don’t know what’s going on in your house, but the Olympics have taken over mine. My kids have been home sick this week and spending tons of time glued to their screens. When I was interviewing a source for a story yesterday afternoon, I heard a piece of paper slide under my office door that simply read: TEAM USA WON! It was delivered by my 10-year-old and referred to the women’s gymnastics competition.
I’ve long been a proponent of using current events as a jumping off point for conversations with kids about important issues. And I’ve found the Olympics to be a fantastic prompt for chats about all sorts of things: Geography, governance, politics, race, ethnicity, inequality, failure, resilience, frustration, body diversity, and sports specialization, to name but a few. I have even quoted from some of my past newsletters in these conversations: At one point, my husband said to the kids that he guessed the U.S. gymnasts had been taking gymnastics lessons since they were toddlers, and I pointed out that most Olympic athletes don’t specialize in their sport until they are teens. (Amazingly, this was something my 10-year-old already knew. Here’s my newsletter on sports specialization if you want to read more.)
I’m wondering what conversations you’ve had with your kids (or partners!) so far about the Olympics and what you feel you or they learned from them. I want to know in part because I want to steal your ideas, lol — I want to identify as many ways as possible to use the Olympics as a platform for communication and education.
Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments!
While watching the men’s gymnastics all-around with two fantastic Ukrainian athletes, I commented to my son that it must be strange for these young men because everyone else their age is fighting. He rightly replied that it must be hard for *all* the Ukrainian athletes, not just the men. So we started talking about that war specifically, and war in general, and trying to live “normally” when you fear for your family, friends, home…. heavy stuff. Got us looking at conflicts going on in different parts of the world right now— also a lesson in humility for all of us living in safety and privilege.
I've been watching the Opening Ceremony over the course of several days with my 5 y.o. We find the countries on the globe and talk about what language they speak. He's very excited for all the countries that speak Spanish because he's in a Spanish immersion program.
We've also talked about the different performances and why they are there -- who was Marie Antoinette, what is a drag queen, etc. We've watched lots of the events as well.
I loved the Olympics as a kid and having a kid has given me the opportunity to love them again without cynicism for the IOC.