Go Ahead, Let Your Toddler Play With Their Food!

Great Food for Thought or a Cringeworthy Mess?

My husband walked through the door as Munchkin Pie (MP) dropped another handful of pureed carrots delightfully, and with force, on the currently food encrusted mat below. I looked on, laughing, as he gave me one of his all knowing, eyebrow raised, smirks.

“ Throwing food on the floor again? A good idea? Really.”

It wasn’t the first time he had walked in as MP sat in the high chair delighted and I, amused, looked on.

I believe in this, maybe unacceptable and definitely OCD terrifying, experience as I told him that day…

Imagine being out in space for the first time ever… a novice trying to take it all in on a shuttle full of pros.

You are given your first meal. How amazing would that moment be? How extraordinary, to simply unscrew your water bottle and take off the top so you can watch the water inside float out in a weightless state.

And even though eeeeveryone else on that shuttle may snicker, having experienced the ceremonial rite of passage many times before…

wouldn’t you watch it with a sense of awe and wonder?

Even an adult. Getting delight and pleasure out of something so seemingly insignificant, perhaps even silly.

No matter how long you’d lived on this planet that would be something you’d never experienced before. You’d probably put food in your palm only to open it and watch laser focused as it slowly drifted up beyond your reach.

Even though you are much older, much wiser, and much more knowledgable about the world than any child and your imagination can predict what your experience will be like in ways a child without exposure to such things never could.

That phenomena would still be… neat!

Well,

MP is still learning to experience gravity on earth and the idea of dropping things only to watch them fall is just as miraculous and awe inspiring,

and sitting up so high in the high chair enables a drop where, usually, being closer to the floor doesn’t allow for.

You may be chuckling, as my husband did that day but, hopefully, you’ve also taken a moment to ponder, maybe reflect on how you would do things differently next time the toddler in your life wants to play with their food, or drop it with great extravagance and much to their delight, if not your own, on the floor.

Not yet? Ok… then how about some facts as to why playing with food is a healthy part of development.

Play is the highest form of research ~Albert Einstein

In all of Albert Einsteins brilliance that is, perhaps, his most delightful quote!

Adults play all the time too… don’t believe me?

Just ask all the tech inventors how much they enjoyed “playing” with computers and fidgeting to create new inventions. It was work… maybe…but every start-up, founder, inventor will point to the passion, the fun, the excitement… the thrill of the technology, science, or medical breakthrough they are discovering and their joy in seeing their dream come to life. The work part comes later.

In the same way kids first learn through play, hopefully, provided in a safe, contained, environment… even while throwing food!

If you stifle that play they may stifle it too and not grow to their full potential.

“Play is the work of childhood”- Piaget

Children Learn Through Play

Piaget’s whole philosophy stems from the idea that children learn through play.

Play comes in all forms including games, songs, tactile experience, cause and effect. Babies embrace the world by being engaged which is literally the definition of play. How do they play?

The only way they know how. Before they speak they experiment with the world around them and as they grow in their ability their range of play grows as well.

And throwing food can be seen as a form of play. Seeing what happens when they make something happen. When I throw this what happens to it? Does it fall to the ground? Does it fly up? Or stand still? Will it come back to me?

But they learn much more. They also learn, when I throw this how will mommy and daddy react? When I throw this what will happen to me? Will their demeanor change? Will they laugh? Frown? Stop me?

In order to let our children experience the world and be inquisitive and curious we need to give them a safe space to know that if they do something that will not harm they will be allowed to experience the outcome. They need to know that they have a safe place in which to learn cause and effect about their world and we will monitor them only to the extent that they will not cause themselves or others any true harm.

They need to know they can do this type of “research” to help them grow into curious, inquisitive teenagers and adults.

“The only source of knowledge is experience”~ Einstein

Tactile Experience Helps Brain Development

Sensory experiences help a child’s brain develop and grow making new connections and synapses and expanding on the knowledge already acquired. Tactile experiences have even been shown to benefit babies as early as premature infancy in developing better neurological connections and more neurological connections when given loving, nurturing touch more often.

There is just something so incredibly satisfying about running fingers through kinetic sand and feeling it crumble and sift back into a pile beneath a hand whose grip gently closes around nothingness. If there wasn’t there wouldn’t be a market for it and it wouldn’t sell as well as it does!

I remember the tear at my own heart when MP picked up the green pea mush… there was the nagging feeling that I had worked so hard making nutritious food, mixed with the cringe of food dropping unwarranted and unnecessarily onto the previously clean mat.

But then I was hit with the thought that, to MP, allowing those pudgy, sweet little fingers running through the cool, green, purified, goo-like mess was comparable to the exhilaration Jackson Pollack felt the first time he threw paint across a canvas & watched it splatter into what is now one if his well known, beloved art pieces.

It’s no wonder babies find the mushy, gooey, sticky food they are meant to ingest just as fun to play with and experience. It is a sensory delight that helps them learn about the world and compose their own art!

Do anything, but let it produce joy ~ Whitman

More Fun is Less Stress

There is nothing better than a babies laugh… to hear that deep giggle that builds up in the belly… no sound sounds as free and open and joyful.

Even you can’t stress when you’re laughing!

Research shows that laughter helps boost satisfactions, mood and activate and relieve your stress response. So sometimes just go along with it and laugh. Laugh at the silliness that isn’t what you expected or even what you wanted your child to do.

I know… you look at that mess being made and think “I’m going to have to clean it up”, or you think, “that’s not how you are supposed to do it”. Squishing, plopping, and just old fashioned playing with food makes no sense to you(it doesn’t make sense to me either). Yet, there is your little munchkin, making a huge mess.

It’s a pain and you’re tired and one more mess is one mess too many but your body, and your mind, will thank you for just rolling with it. Giving into the mess, letting them have fun, laughing with them and also having fun creates joy within your own body which relaxes you.

You will be happier, your munchkin will be happier and one day you will look back, and they will no longer be making that mess.

They will be a teenager who wants to hang out with their friends…

and then they will go off to college and you will see them on holidays and when they run out of clean laundry.

So let them have the mess

And you have the memories…

Let them have the developmental benefits

And you have the experience of being part of that joy as they discover the world around them.

No cringing… Enjoy the mess! Enjoy the messy play time! And build the connections you will cherish forever.