Drew's festivities kicked off Thursday with a special pajama-clad movie day when the kindergartners watched "The Polar Express." Along with the movie they had chocolate chip cookies and hot chocolate with marshmallows.
After school, Drew told Zach he wasn't feeling too well, and said that "his cheek hurt." He's had that complaint before...right before he barfed. Uh oh.
That afternoon I was supervising the faculty kids for the district Christmas party, and Drew was scheduled to join us. He dragged himself in and half-heartedly took one piece of pizza from the 15 (not exaggerating) pizza boxes to choose from. He left the cookies alone.
A bit later he told me he thought he was going to throw up, so I took him to the bathroom, and then shortly thereafter took him home. (He never threw up, thank goodness.)
"What did you eat today?" I asked on the way home. "What did you have at the movie?"
"Um, we had some cookies and hot chocolate with marshmallows."
"How many?"
"Well, I had two hot chocolates with marshmallows."
"Oh, Drew...that's a lot of sugar. And cookies too?"
"Yes."
"Well, no wonder your stomach doesn't feel good. That's too rich and too much sugar for you."
Fast forward to the next morning, when he confessed to his dad that he had THREE chocolate chip cookies with his two hot chocolates with marshmallows. He confessed the same thing to his mother on the way home from school.
"DREW!!!" I said in what I'm quite sure was a very annoying Mom voice. "You CANNOT have that much sugar in one sitting! It hurts your stomach!"
I wasn't trying to scold, but he teared up anyway.
"Drew, buddy, I'm not mad at you, but this is something that you've just got to learn. I know it's hard to say no to cookies, because they taste so good. I like them too. But you've got to realize that if you have too many, your stomach is going to hurt."
He recovered quickly, and the tears were gone before he went into the house. But I was left wondering a few things. First, how do you teach a kid not to go crazy when presented with a giant platter of cookies. Or pizza. Or chips. And also...was anybody manning that cookie/hot chocolate table? Or was it a complete free-for-all, have-as-many-cookies-as-you-want fest?
I was still contemplating those questions the next day when I attended his class party, where the menu included large doughnuts decorated like snowmen, doughnut holes, Capri Suns, apple slices, grapes, and oranges. (Thanks for the token fruit! Too bad not much got eaten since it tasted "sour" after the doughnuts were gobbled up.)
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A friend of mine told me about her nephew (also a kindergartner), who blew through 20 bucks on his meal account in one week. How'd he do it? By getting an extra chocolate milk and an ice cream every day in addition to his regular lunch.
His mom found out what he was doing when she visited the school at lunch one day. I imagine she gave him a speech kind of like the one above, and then she went and visited the lunch lady.
She asked if they monitor what the kids buy and make sure that they're not subsisting on chocolate milk and ice cream alone.
"No," was the reply. "We can't tell the kids what to get or what not to get."
Hmm. Can't tell them what to eat? Or can't resist the extra income from the six-year-old with a sweet tooth who most likely doesn't even understand what "having money in an account" means?
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I do not think it is a school's responsibility to raise children. The public schools of America are designed to educate kids and prepare them to be contributing members of society.
I am not against treats, nor am I against special occasions or parties. But is it too much to ask for a little common sense where food is concerned? Kindergartners are five and six years old. Not old enough, in my opinion, to make intelligent food choices, particularly in the face of cookies, pizza, chocolate milk, and ice cream.
We've gotten to a point where we treat our kids so much that
it's not even a treat anymore. Pizza isn't a treat...It's a Tuesday.
Cookies aren't for special occasions...they're for 3:00.
We need to offer a little guidance to the smaller members of society who haven't figured out that mass quantities of liquid chocolate, chocolate chips, and chocolately super chocolate with a chocolate swirl is going to make you have a stomach ache. And after they figure that out, we need to teach them what that sugar does to them and why we shouldn't have a bunch of it.
Time will tell, but I think this lesson had an impact on Drew. I figure he's got about two months before he gets put to his knowledge to the test at Valentine's Day parties.
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Workout of the Day
P90X Plus, Total Body Plus
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