Eat Only After Reading!

Our Magic Camp is a beneficial holiday: recreation for children and adults. It's beneficial for the mind, for the body, and even for the stomach!

And this story is proof of that.

I enter the girls' room to remind them about lights out in 30 minutes and notice a lot of sweets – chocolate bars, cookies, chocolate cream, chocolate cheese (?!), candies, and so on.

It's clear: there was a trip to the store, and the girls bought sweets for three days (unlikely anything will be left tomorrow).

My attention was drawn to the chocolate cheese – it looks like processed cheese in a cup, but somehow chocolate.

— What's this? – I ask the girls with curiosity. (The whole conversation was in English, as this is one of the rules of our English-speaking camps: all communication is in English!)

— We saw it for the first time ourselves, decided to try it.

— What attracted you? – I take the cup in my hands and start reading.

— Well, I love cheese and I love chocolate, and here they're together – it should be delicious! – Masha answers me joyfully, on whose nightstand this cup is standing.

— Did you read the ingredients? – I ask carefully.

— Why would I? – Masha asks me in surprise. She's already on alert, ready to hear how harmful it is, and I can see that she already regrets not hiding this cup from me.

— Just curious how much chocolate is in there – I love it too, – I answer, and I see the tension disappear from Masha's face because she also became curious about how much chocolate she actually bought in this cup.

We start reading together, or rather, I show her where to read and hand her the cup – after all, it's important that she reads and sees everything herself.

Do you read product labels?

I'll tell you honestly, the most difficult words can only be found on labels. So Masha reads the chocolate cheese ingredients for quite a while, and here's her conclusion:

— I didn't understand anything, there's nothing written about chocolate!

— That can't be! – although deep down I readily believe her words, – maybe you're reading the wrong place? – I try to maintain her hope and at the same time focus her attention on the most important thing – the product composition.

— Well, look – is there any chocolate there?

Now I'm reading and know I can tell the truth.

— Yes, there's only a colorant called "chocolate," which, in turn, consists of very incomprehensible chemical elements. Yes, it looks delicious... (I'm turning the jar in my hands) Although I don't like to eat what I can't pronounce.

— So this is neither cheese nor chocolate. What did I buy?! – Masha got upset.

— Well... Just next time read not the name but the ingredients – you'll learn the real name of the product, – I encourage her.

Her friends were also listening, also took the cup, read it, tried to read the component names aloud, and had a good laugh.

— Masha, it's probably dangerous to eat, – her neighbors cheerfully concluded.

And I understand that I'm going to leave now, and they might still eat it – after all, it's sweet! But I also have no right to say that this product should be thrown away – it doesn't belong to me, I didn't buy it, it's Masha's private property.

— Girls, be careful when buying what you're going to consume – all of this affects your body, and we often don't know how.

— Yes, thank you, Nadia!

— And I completely forgot, – I add, realizing that the discussion is over and everything I could do, I've done. If I do anything more – give advice, describe cases, etc. (you know how adults love to talk about "proper" topics) – it won't be beneficial, they'll be more annoyed than listening.

— It's almost lights out, you have 25 minutes to get ready. Okay? – I say what I came to tell them.

— Perfect, in 25 minutes we'll be going to bed. I'll just go out now and throw this cheese in the trash so it's not in our room. We're ready to go to sleep! – Masha said cheerfully and naturally.

Do you have moments of triumph?

This one is definitely triumphant for me! How important it is to believe that children can make the right choice – they just need space for it. We often fill this space with advice, recommendations, life stories, and the child wants to do things their own way because there's little space left for their own decision, and doing what an adult says is rarely desirable. We were like that too, weren't we?

Of course, they still have a lot of sweets left, and they'll eat even more of them, but they read the label, and maybe they'll develop a criterion for selecting sweets – after all, they can also be less harmful.

Thought and doubt (a step toward critical thinking) – these are the main achievements of these five minutes in the girls' room. And this is my triumph.