Finger painting, glitter and glue, play dough, soapy water… those words might excite children to no ends, but they make some parents shudder.

We don’t blame them: parents love to see their children be happy and have fun – but something they don’t like is cleaning up the mess they leave afterwards.

However, we’re here to break the news: messy play is something that shouldn’t be avoided. In fact, it should be promoted.

We’re not making this up – messy play actually has a lot of benefits for a child’s early stages of development, though not many parents are still open to the concept. Let’s broaden your horizons a little, and discuss why the madness of messy play matters so much:

Creative & Exploratory Freedom

Messy play, in itself, has no specific set of rules that your child has to follow. Since there is no one proper way of playing, children are exposed to an open field where nothing is stopping them. And where there are no rules, they begin to make their own.

Now, this sparks their innate sense of curiosity, making them experiment with different things, and explore their own ways of inventing fun. This puts their creative sides into the test, as they learn how to process their imaginations into reality.

Immense Sensory Exposure

After the creative freedom that messy play offers, comes the next best thing: sensory exposure.

When babies turn into toddlers, they become acutely aware of their five senses – sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. They also become more aware of the world around them, and so want to explore more of it through their five trusty tools.

Messy play happens to be the best first step; whether it’s splashing soapy water around, grabbing fistfuls of grass, or poking fun at some colourful slime, children experience how different sensations feel like first hand. They begin to learn a bit more about the world around them, and how to interact with it.

Cognitive Improvement

Although messy play seems to be entirely physical, it has its own cognitive benefits to offer.

When exposed to random things like play dough or some paints, children learn to infer questions – “What if I touch this paint? What if I pour glitter in, and mix it with my finger?” This is followed by children acting on their curiosity and learning to either enjoy the result, hate it, or further improve on it with even more experiment.

Though this may seem like harmless play, it’s actually your child practising the basic principles of scientific inquiry, and “cause-and-effect” style of learning. Furthermore, messy play helps children learn other vital cognitive skills like mathematics,  problem-solving, critical thinking, and much more.

Bonus: it boosts immunity!

We’re not kidding! Playing messily at an early age, in fact, improves a child’s overall health by boosting their immunity.

For messy play in the park, for example, children digging their hands into piles or dirt or leaves allows children to build resistance against germs they might otherwise be targets of. Through such a kind of exposure (and proper after-care, of course!), children’s immunity improves, and they grow up to be healthier adults.


Oakfield Early Learning Centre, a nursery in JLT,  is well aware of the method behind the madness when it comes to messy play, and so always arranges a time for children to let loose their creative sides. They wear their little aprons and paint to their heart’s content with their hands, sponges, and much more. In any case, the reward within all the messiness is seeing their students have some fun with their friends.

So the next time you find your child making a mess with glitter or sand, don’t worry about the mess they’ll be creating – instead, celebrate their beaming smiles.