kids and mess

Kids love mess. It’s as simple as that. Nothing stimulates them more than creating something with their own hands. Although we all know that letting them be free to explore their environment and play around with different materials is important but every now and then it drives us insane to see a huge mess on our living room floor. Scattered toys is acceptable but paints or Styrofoam particles everywhere is just hard to clean. Recently after such an episode, I decided to do something for my sanity. Here’s what you can do in such a situation;

1- Allocate a spot, no matter how small, for messy play in your home. It can be a terrace or a small corner hidden from the main areas of the house, but it should be a place where no one bugs them on being creative with clay, slime, paints or whatever messy thing they can’t do in their rooms

2- A very important part of this process is to involve them in planning for such a space. Let them know you are thinking about giving them a free hand in playing with all the messy stuff as long as they contain it withing the designated area. Help them decorate the space and place all their stuff there. This will hopefully get them excited about their new laboratory/workshop.

3- Talk to them about respecting all areas of the home and keep them clean as each area of the house serves a different purpose and now that they have their own work space they are expected to keep rest of the house free from things that can be hard to clean off furniture and carpets etc. This is important to keep the relationships in the house undamaged as a lot of the times us, mothers, scream and yell at kids to clean up after themselves which later makes us feel guilty. This will hopefully prevent that and at the same it could be an opportunity to teach them about boundaries and responsibilities.