Once Upon a Time… A #SocialExperiment

I love stories. My love for stories and reading is the one things I have wanted to pass on to my daughter for sure. So, from a very young age, I have been telling her stories. We have a simple enough routine of stories before bed time. Most days, I either read a story to her or make one of my own. She picks out characters and I spin a tale… She has picked princesses, lions, magicians, hunters, magical flowers, naughty children, bunnies and all cutesy things. We really enjoy these sessions and I end up recording these stories on my mobile phone for playback later. I did wonder though if my purpose was being achieved. Was she developing a love for stories? Last month, I got a chance to test this out for real thanks to Colgate and IB.

I was invited to be a part of a social experiment involving little toddlers and young school going children. The premise was that children have very fertile imaginations and the right stimulants can lead them to be extremely creative. Colgate has launched the sea world packs which contain a myriad of sea creatures on the inside of the cartons. We gave the cartons to the kids and helped them cut out the characters of their choice. There were pirates, ships, sharks, whales, lion fish, sea turtles, dolphins, mermaids, octopus and even lost sea treasures to choose from. The kids picked out the characters that appealed most to them and concocted their own tales out of it. My daughter made a story about a treasure seeking pirate.

The pirate finds the treasure but is defeated by the octopus throwing ink at him. Blinded, the pirate returns to his ship. The pirate’s daughter then takes the help of a dolphin to reach the octopus and cuts off all his arms by a sword. She then gets the treasure on the ship. The ship is then attacked by a giant whale and is about to sink. The girl, her dad and the ship’s crew escapes the attack on a school of dolphins and save the treasure too!

Now isn’t that cute? What surprised me was that she talked about the octopus throwing ink to attack the pirate. I asked her where she learnt it and she reminded me that she had seen an octopus throw something black in a cartoon a while back. She had not understood what happened and had asked me about it. I had then explained to her about the defence mechanism of octopuses using camouflage and their preference of hiding out in sunk ship wrecks. I had also told her about the ink throwing. She was able to use this information and incorporate into her story.

I have never told her a sea themed story till date. Even so, she was able to look at the sea characters and relate it to the facts she knows about sea creatures and fishes from her visits to aquariums. She was able to put herself in the shoes of pirates and go seek treasures out. As a mother, I was extremely proud of her story and delighted at her creativity. In fact, her story was so good that the crew filming it as well as the Colgate team burst into a spontaneous applause as it ended 🙂

The team has put together a montage of the experiment and it is a lovely little piece with cute children telling a story. They have picked bits from every child’s story and made a tale that you all can enjoy. Have a look-

Do you love stories? If you do, how would you pass on that love to your children? If your children tell you such awesome stories, do share them using the hashtag #colgatemagicalstories 🙂