The Olympics Have Begun: Don't Forget to Teach Your Children About the World and the Spirit of Sports

The recently opened Olympics in France is drawing the world's attention and is also a great opportunity to educate children. Here's how parents might talk to their children about the Olympics:

The Olympics, the world's largest comprehensive sports event, held every four years, aims to encourage the spirit of sports among people. As the most influential sports event in the world, while we enjoy the feast of competitive sports, we should not ignore our children. The Olympics is also a great opportunity to educate children!

1. Inspirational Education: Learning Focus and Persistence

One minute on stage, ten years of practice off stage. The Olympics is an inspirational education. The gold medals and honors we see, the majestic and heroic moments, are all results of the athletes' countless hours of hard work, pain, and even danger. At that moment on stage, they have not only surpassed their limits but also transcended life and death.

Watching the Olympics with children, tell them the inspirational stories behind the medals. Teach them the importance of persistence and focus. Let children believe that with relentless effort, miracles can be created. Emphasize that learning any skill or developing any good habit requires long-term persistence and going through tedious and tough processes; otherwise, there will be no results.

2. Interest Education: Making Children Love Sports

The Olympics represent the highest level of human competition today. Let children discover the beauty of sports—beautiful bodies, elegant movements, and bursts of passion. From appreciating beauty, they can develop an interest in sports. Teach them that being too skinny or overweight is unhealthy; a healthy body is the most precious wealth for a lifetime. Also, let them know that exercise not only improves physical fitness but also hones their willpower.

The Olympics are full of exciting moments, and watching them with children can ignite their love for sports. Parents can take the opportunity to develop and cultivate their children's hobbies, enriching their lives, enhancing their resistance to diseases, intellectual development, and mental health. Exercising together with children can also strengthen the parent-child bond.

3. Emotional Intelligence Education: Respecting Others and Oneself

The Olympic arena is full of drama, showcasing various aspects of life. There are hard-fought victories after countless trials, as well as heartbreaks after endless efforts. There are injuries and slanders, as well as encouragement and support. There are strong opponents and sincere friends.

Watching the Olympics with children, tell them: respecting others is respecting yourself. For instance, during the medal ceremony for the women's 49kg weightlifting champion Hou Zhihui and the women's singles table tennis champion Chen Meng, they invited the other two medalists to stand together on the highest podium for a photo. This detail was praised by netizens as "having a great mindset." Small details reflect character. In sports, there is not only competition but also respect.

Children learn not only competition but also deeper moral values from the Olympics: applauding when the opponent wins and not sneering when the opponent loses. Children who learn respect will not mock their peers when they fall behind or make mistakes.

4. Emotional Education: Even Losers Are Heroes

The competition field is unpredictable, with many accidental factors. Today's silver and bronze medalists may stand on the gold medal podium tomorrow. For example, the "cutest age difference" pair Jiang Ranxin and Pang Wei, who won the seventh gold medal for the Chinese team in the mixed team 10m air pistol event, had both previously won bronze medals in their individual events. This shows that silver and bronze medals, though not as shiny as gold, do not mean inferior skills.

In competitions, there is the joy of victory and the sadness of defeat. These intertwined emotions are the charm of sports. Sports are like life; no one is always a "perennial champion." Failure is an unavoidable topic for both athletes and children. Some children feel extremely distressed when they lose a game or fail an exam.

Talking to children about failure is to turn these experiences into stepping stones for growth rather than obstacles, encouraging them to strive for victory and calmly accept the regrets of failure.

5. Rule Education: True Fairness and Freedom Come Under Rules

This year's Tokyo Olympics introduced two new regulations: table tennis players are not allowed to blow on the ball or touch the table during matches. This is a considerable challenge for players used to these actions! In one round, Xu Xin, who was about to serve, habitually brought the ball to his mouth to blow, but he stopped immediately, recalling the new rules, and looked back at the referee in a hurry. This scene was both heartwarming and amusing.

Rules are rules. Competitions can only be fair under common rules. True fairness and freedom exist under rules. The sports field is all about rules: teamwork, fair competition, and refereeing all adhere to rules.

Watching the Olympics with children, tell them: once the rules are set, everyone needs to follow them. If everyone acts as they please, we can't play together. Cultivating children's respect for sports rules is essentially cultivating their respect for various rules in life.

Plato once said something thought-provoking: "God gave humans two channels for evolution: education and sports."

Education is the channel for humans to emerge from ignorance; sports is the channel for humans to move from mediocrity to strength, breaking through the self.

Life lies in sports. To fuel the journey of a child's life, sports are the best investment for their brain.

In the short term, children's future depends on their learning ability, but in the long run, it depends on their physical strength.

Sports not only strengthen the body but also temper the spirit and will.

If you want your child to stick to a habit, sports are often the best choice.