Messes are Awesome!
Messy is Good! But, Yeah, It Can Be Gross
Getting messy is fun. A perfect house is a house that has not experienced the highs, and yes, lows, of joy, love, and utility. Great sex isn’t exactly always clean and tidy either. You just have to be willing to wash everything after the exuberance. And hopefully the process or outcome was worth the stains. (If it isn’t, you may want to change how or what you’re doing.)
Plan for the Messes
I bought a simple carpet for my daughter many months ago. Theoretically she can play with the images on it (pretending it’s a city street for her toy cars), but it can also just serve the purpose of containment. I put it under her craft table and chairs. When she paints on Saturday or Sunday mornings, I don’t care if paint drips onto that carpet. I wipe up what I can, but I’m not slaving over making sure that no drop shows up as a stain.
If a bit of green paint gets on the carpet, oh look, it’s a shrub near the highway image on the carpet! Even if the stains can’t be turned into something funny, so what if there’s a smudge? I’d rather my daughter enjoy her painting than care about something that cost less than $40 and will definitely get worn out in a variety of ways anyway (dogs laying on it, feet walking all over it, Playdoh getting ground deep into it, etc.)
Carpets like this are cheap and replaceable. Replace them every so often if you feel the need, but I encourage you not to let fear of imperfection get in the way of enjoyment.
Why Let Kids Make a Mess?
Kids are tactile learners. Working with Playdoh and clay are key ways to build muscle strength in little ones. I learned that by attending a live webinar of “The Essentials of Learning through Play” with Ann Gadzikowski through Bright Horizons (the recording is available below and elsewhere online). She encourages messy activities too as a way to engage in a meaningful, educational way with the world. I encourage you to browse the webinar below if you have time.
More from the Webinar’s Presenter
I enjoyed the Gadzikowski’s webinar and added one of her books, Challenging Exceptionally Bright Children in Early Childhood Classrooms
to my to-read list. If anyone has already read this, I’d be interested in your perspectives.
Invest in Yourself
So, why watch a webinar? That seems like an investment, and I work full-time. Is that really a good way to spend my time? Yes, it is.
A Chance to Learn
Webinars like this aren’t just to learn something novel. Of course I knew that playing with Playdoh is a good thing for a child to do. That’s why I keep lots of Playdoh around, and I use it every weekend constructing things with my daughter. I didn’t actually know that it could help with muscle development in that way. It makes sense when I think about it, but sometimes having something directly pointed out can make a difference.
Webinars, reading parenting books, talking with other parents, and really any way to engage the parenting part of yourself and your brain is a way to consciously focus on how you can be a better parent. Like meditation, it focuses you for just a few minutes, an hour, or more.
Consciously Practice Being a Better Parent
It may not seem like it makes a big difference at the moment, but as a conscious practice, reaching out to better ourselves in specific ways (ex. to become a better programmer, speaker, or parent) allows us the practice that leads to better, even if we never attain perfection.
We keep telling kids to practice, practice, practice. But where is our practice to be better parents? I block off time on my calendar to encourage myself to dedicate that time to focused activities like webinars, writing this blog, and more. I scheduled viewing this webinar during work time and blocked off the hour on my work calendar. My job encourages work-life balance, so this was a feasible thing to do. Do whatever works for you, whether it’s during the day or at night, videos or reading.
Focus on the Important Thing, the Child, Not the Mess,
Focusing on the end result (the pictures that are drawn and the smile on my daughter’s face) keeps me from worrying about the mess along the way (the stained carpet)
More Stuff
At-home Activity:
To make clay at home to play with, simply mix salt, flour, and water into a consistency that you find easy to handle.
For Further Reading:
Ann Gadzikowski’s blog includes an article on “Hack That Code-a-Pillar!” The article discusses ways to make the code-a-pillar silent. A friend gave my daughter one of these toys for Christmas, and I acknowledge that they can be loud. If noises drive you nuts, you may want to take a look at her instructions for how to deactivate the noisy features.
