Are you watching the Winter Olympics with your child?

While my children normally prefer to watch cartoons, I’ve been able to slowly but surely get them to watch the Olympics with my husband and I. We started with curling and cross country skiing, I couldn’t hold their attention. Skating caught their eye, “Wow, they make it look so easy,” my oldest commented. Snowboarding, the half-pipe in particular, captured their attention. Watching Chloe Kim and Shaun White win gold was pretty amazing. Getting the kids to stay tuned beyond that has been much simpler. They are now interested in watching downhill, luge, and ski jumping. They are slowly but surely getting into the Olympics.

Of course, I’m reminded of my own Olympic dreams when I was a kid. Swimming was my sport and I just knew one day I’m make the games. I wonder what impact watching the Olympics will have on my kids. Will watching inspire them to have new Olympic dreams?

There is something special about the Olympics. You see passion, dedication, and sacrifice. You see people’s dreams come true or crashing down. It can be a roller coaster of emotions for the athlete and the viewer. What it gave me as a kid was a dream — a vision for what I could do and who I could be (Olympian) — I never made it that far, but the child in me always treasures the dream for what it was. I learned that while the athletes make their respective sports look easy, it’s the long hours of hard work, failures and getting up and trying to get better over and over again that elevates them to their elite levels, and that in life to excel and exceed you have to push yourself to be your best over and over again very much like an Olympic athlete.

I wonder what my kids will take from the Olympics.

Are your kids into the Olympics? What impact do you think the Olympics will have on them?