Benefits of Messy Play That'll Make You Say Yes to the Mess
FAMILY

Five Benefits of Messy Play That Will Make You Say 'Yes to the Mess!'

It’s normal for children to make a mess when playing. That’s why it can be challenging for parents to keep the entire house neat and tidy when they have playful toddlers at home.

Nevertheless, making a mess is a toddler’s way to explore their surroundings and engage their curiosity and desire to experience new things. They use their bodies to feel different textures and sensations. Although the sensory or messy play is beneficial, parents need to learn how to control them by setting boundaries without compromising the child’s development.

Let’s find out the importance of messy play and the necessary life skills your kids can learn from it.

Promotes Physical Development

One of the major benefits of messy play is physical development, which is a fundamental factor as the person gets older. It improves balance, coordination, and strengthens the muscles through practice-controlled movements such as shoveling sand, holding a pen, and painting.

Improves Fine Motor Skills and Practices Good Concentration

Messy play benefits

Another benefit of messy play involves activities that can improve their hand-eye coordination such as playing with toilet paper, creating marks in the sand, and even holding a utensil. These activities can help them learn how to focus and develop high concentration levels.

This is an important life skill used in our daily lives such as eating, cooking, or simply tying your shoelaces. Hand-eye coordination is also essential when learning to read and write at school.

Develops Language and Communication Skills

Messy play benefits

Engagement in messy play implies social activities with other children or family members that could help them improve social skills and cognitive abilities. Through playing, they communicate using gestures, facial expressions, or noises, especially babies and nonverbal children.

Using letters to initiate a messy play can help children practice their spelling abilities and develop their speech skills. Once they could understand the written language, their vocabulary will continue to build up. Moreover, it is important to frequently ask them open-ended questions to further encourage listening and thinking skills.

Increases Creativity and Hand Dexterity

Messy play is an interaction using the child’s smell, hearing, vision, tactile sensation, and taste if necessary. Letting them experience and understand how to use things and feel different textures can stimulate their creativity and imagination.

Through drawing and scribbling, messy play helps boost the dexterity of their hands and fingers. This is a necessary skill for future surgeons, dentists, and even painters.

Appreciates Solo Playtime

Messy play benefits

A playgroup or a sleepover with a friend is great for your child to develop social skills. On the other hand, playing alone doesn’t mean being unsociable because teaching your children to play independently and entertain themselves provides valuable learnings.

Solo playtime teaches them to be calm, confident, satisfied, and socially independent. In addition to that, playing by themselves enables them to feel comfortable in any situation by solving their problems peacefully with their toys.

But before leaving your child to play alone, make sure that they are in a safe environment. Create a space for them where they could foster their imagination.

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