It’s every parent’s
worst nightmare: Take your eyes off your child for a minute and
suddenly activity time has turned into a giant mess. Paints
splattered everywhere, glue hanging off their fingers, their faces
and clothes decorated in a rainbow of colors; it’s almost
frightening just thinking about the cleanup. But should you really be
so concerned? Many experts believe the opposite.
Messy play helps to
develop certain skills, the most obvious, of course, being
creativity. With all the chaos and confusion of a mess, it’s
probable that children who have grown up around messy work spaces
gain the ability to cut right through the muck and find incredible
solutions to difficult problems. It’s no wonder then that some of
the world’s most famous creatives, like Steve Jobs, Mark Twain,
Mark Zuckerberg, and Albert Einstein, are notorious for having messy
desks.
Aside from creativity,
messy play has been linked with developing fine motor, emotional,
social, and even mathematical skills as well.
If cleaning up is your
primary concern against messy play, there are ways to make cleanup a
little less difficult. For example, getting your child an art smock
can help them keep their clothes clean as they play.
Art smocks for children
come in a wide range of sizes suited to children of different ages.
In fact, some companies offer larger-sized bibs for babies who like
to eat messy—which research has found to be a sign of a faster
learner.
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