Sticky! Muddy! Sandy! Messy!!!

Sticky!  Muddy!  Sandy!  Messy!!!

Sammy is one of the cutest and smartest kids I know.  But watch out when she eats.  One bite of brownie and walla….at least four brown spots now adorn her new light blue shirt and …. “Are you sure you got any of that in your mouth?  It’s smeared all over your face!”  Everyone who has met Sammy knows to lay out the plastic and change her nice clothes to something that can get ruined before any eating occurs.

Getting messy is actually a great way for kids, especially toddlers, to learn by experiencing life.  I know there are you moms who keep an immaculate home and getting messy sounds like a curse word, or worse, but here’s the secret.  Kids getting mess is a very healthy activity.  Don’t confuse this with filthy.  Messy and filthy are polar opposites. 

Especially during early life, not only is the body growing, but the mind is too.  For example, all the sensations in our hands communicate to our brains what something is, how it feels, smells, tastes, etc.  We didn’t learn that without having experienced it.  What does sticky mean, for instance.  Everyone reading this knows the answer to that.  Why?  Oh yeah, because at some point in your life, you experienced it. 

To go into the details of all that a child learns by getting messy could make for a long post and I want to keep this as simple as possible.  To simplify, crawling, touching, exploring, feeling, tasting, and so on, helps in the development of nerves, word use, understanding communication, and so much more.

Would you rather watch a documentary about your dream vacation or go there and live it?  Well, same goes for kids.  You may learn a lot from that documentary, but wow, to experience it gives you volumes.  And no matter how many times you tell your toddler that something is sticky, they are not going to get it until they feel what sticky is.

So find a special place for your child to go wild and get messy.  Lay out the plastic if you must, designate a corner of the backyard, or put them in the empty tub and let them go to it.  Put them in old clothes or strip them to the diaper if that makes you feel better, but let them get messy. 

Foods especially are ideal learning tools.  Allow your child to play with their food.  Stop worrying about the mess and think about what they are gaining.  Seem like a lot of work?  In the end, it may be less work and less frustrating than having to deal with hypersensitive or picky children, or children who are having developmental delays because they don’t understand simple aspects of life. 

As crazy as it may sound, giving kids a chance to get messy is really giving them volumes of learning.  So, provide some spoons for the dirt pile out back, a bucket for water, and some old clothes and let the learning begin.  Let them up on the cupboard when you’re cooking and let them break the eggs, pour the flour, or stir with a wooden spoon.  And don’t worry about the flour powder coating the kitchen floor or the egg white that is dripping from the edge of the counter.  You will be giving them not only some precious time with you, but also a whole world of exploration to learn from.  Now isn’t that a treasure?  They certainly will think so.