Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

The four of us went to the closing ceremony of Youth Olympic Games (YOG) 2010 at Marina Bay today!

It was our very first time watching such a big event LIVE!

We so looked forward to being in the crowd, watching the performances and fireworks LIVE, and watching the many young athletes from all over the world get together for the last time in Singapore!

I took quite a bit of photos with my Canon Powershot S90 and I’ve shared some on my Facebook.

Click HERE to view the photos!

[Shot was taken by Wilson!]

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Btw, when it comes to YOG, some people did ask me, ‘Why would you guys want to go and bring the kids to the Youth Olympic Games anyway?’

And here’s my usual answer:

The Youth Olympic Games is a big-scale event where young sportspeople from all over the world get together and do their best. And it happened to be held HERE in Singapore, where we currently live! (ie. We don’t have to fly overseas to watch the games). It’s something that will probably not happen again in many decades to come!

Plus, we’d like our two young children to experience and see for themselves the many young people out there (who are not that much older than them!) who train very hard in what they do (and in this case, it’s a sport).

We’d like Anya and Vai to feel the excitement, and to see for themselves the many young people from around the world doing different sports, and how despite the difficulties and physical challenges they all face during their many hours of training, they persevere and they keep on going.

You see, THIS is the spirit that we hope our two kids learn and pick up too!

While we’re watching the games or during the closing ceremony, we also explained to our kids that it’s NOT about winning, nor about being number one. It’s NOT about being ‘BETTER than my peers’.

We share with them how it’s more about exploring what we can do and about not giving up though things get tough.

AND, even if after giving our very best, other people are ‘better’ than us, it’s totally okay, because we know we’ve given our best according to our capability.

[Watching Gymnastics at Bishan Sports Hall. We’re there early!]

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So, if someone were to ask me, ‘Will bringing your kids to the Youth Olympic Games change your kids’ perception towards life and sports?’

I’d say, ‘Frankly, … we don’t know.’

There’s one thing we know for sure though, and that is, as parents we both will try to teach and expose our children to what we feel and hope can inspire and make a positive difference in them.