Watch the Olympics Games.

The lessons learned through watching the Olympics have been tremendous. Throughout my life my family has gathered together to watch the Summer Olympics and celebrate our country through sport. My wife’s experience of The Olympics was different; it was not a focal point of the home. When I told her it was very important to me that we watch the Olympics together, she originally did not see the fascination. She soon found the value in our son watching the Olympics with us, as a family. Each evening from 8:00pm until he went to bed around 9:00pm we would watch. I would record the Games and we would watch in the early evenings too.

In school, they were talking about the different countries and he started learning about the flags. He started learning about some of our Olympic heroes, such as Michael Phelps. When the Olympics started and the opening ceremonies had Michael Phelps bringing the American flag into the stadium, my son got very excited. He became very patriotic and wanted to cheer on his country, the United States.

He also started learning about competition, about winning, and sportsmanship.
He was asking about all of the different flags of the different countries. He wanted to look at a map and see where these countries were. He wanted to understand the difference between first, second, and third place. He wanted to understand what the gold, silver, and bronze medals represented. He learned the excitement of winning and all of us winning as a country.

He also experienced the disappointment of losing and not getting medals. We talked about the hard work that these athletes put in for years and years and years to get to this level.

At the end of the Olympics, he wanted to write a letter to some of the Olympians thanking them for representing our country. His favorite sports were volleyball, gymnastics and of course swimming as Michael Phelps did extremely well once again.

He learned nearly all of the flags of all the countries represented in the Olympics in the few weeks that we watched the Olympics. He learned about sportsmanship, excitement, disappointment, hard work and appreciation for other countries. He also learned about patriotism. The lessons from watching the Olympics, as a family, have been invaluable and in my opinion not as easily taught without sport, specifically the Olympic sports.