Driving Olympic Fever in our Kids

Being a Vancouver native, of course I have the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympic Games on my mind at all times….gosh, who doesn’t…..it’s so exciting. But, what I found most intriguing was how my 5 year old daughter was reacting to all of the Olympic hype.

I honestly thought that my daughter would pass through the Olympics with little interest. However, quite the contrary, she is very interested and very excited. It all started when her kindergarten class started to learn all about the Olympics during class and what the Olympics mean to athletes all over the world (to my daughter the “world” consists of Canada, Mexico and Disneyland).

Her elementary school has brought in guest speakers of past Olympians telling stories about their journey to become an Olympic athlete and how they had to work extremely hard to accomplish their goals.

If that was me telling my daughter about how to accomplish her goals I would have lost her at “let’s have a talk”. However, she was so enthused at what these Olympic athletes had to say and she was genuinely interested in their past experiences.

Then I recently took her to the Olympic torch lighting ceremony in Whistler, BC. There were thousands of people there and the excitement that was streaming through the city was electric. My daughter was up way past her bedtime in order to see the torch enter the city and didn’t even complain once. She loved every minute of it. My favorite part was right after the Olympic torch was lit the crowd started to sing the Canadian National Anthem. I have never heard my daughter belt out the lyrics……in fact; I didn’t even know she knew the lyrics…..so loudly!

Right after the ceremony we preceded directly to the Olympic store to buy my daughter her favorite Olympic Mascot Stuffy…..Muk Muk. My favorite is Quatchi so we had to buy one of those as well…..well, ok, we bought the whole set of four for an astounding $65 but it’s a once in a lifetime experience…right?

When we returned home from Whistler my daughter told her Nana all about the experience in Whistler and showed off her new mascot. She has really loved every minute of the Olympic experience so far….and the games haven’t even officially opened yet.

The moral of this story for me is that our children are never too young to experience wonderful things and to never underestimate the power of the Olympic experience.

Go for Gold Canada!!!!!