A strange thing happened today that caused me to stop and think... K spent some time with my lovely Aunty T who is very generous. First Aunty T took her into the shop and said "What would you like to drink? You can have anything you like. Coke? Fruit juice? Powerade?" to wit K replies "I''ll have a bottle of water please". So I'm already looking like super-strict mummy, despite this actually being K's own quirk, she's always liked bottled water best. But a bit later Aunty T gave K her own roll of polo's. The child's eyes grew to be absolutely enormous, and after squeaking her gratitude K came scurrying over to me - "Mummy - look what Aunty T gave me. Can I have them? May I open them?". She then proceeded to share them out with absolutely everyone, including strangers, and then also stock piled some for her sister and cousin later on.
The reason I'm sharing this story is it made me realise that, at the great age of 7 and 3/4, K has never had her own roll of polo's, or in fact any other type of sweets. She's had those little packs of haribos and things you get in party bags, but not an actual roll or big bag of sweets. I'm fairly sure that by this age I had had rolls of sweets quite often. Have I been depriving my child? Surely the receiving a roll of sweets, on Sunday, bought with your pocket money, is an important part of childhood? Hoarding them from your siblings and trying to make them last all day. Sucking them instead of crunching them in order to drag it out as long as possible. Eating them all at once and regretting it for the rest of the day while your siblings smirk that they still have theirs and eat them really slowly in ront of you. A life skill surely?
Should this be added to my list of modern milestones for child development? I recommend introducing your children to possession of a small roll of mints at 6 and a half - see how they manage with this...
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