Simply Messy Or Creative Activity?

Creativity is almost second nature for kids. I guess this is because they haven't fully developed the capacity for shame, regret and suppression of self-expression. They express themselves exactly the way they feel through anything they have access to i.e. words, paper, sand, mud, cloth, animals, music, anything. They jump up and down energetically, they run, hop, skip and jog as though their lives depend on it. Their creativity has a little downside especially for their caregivers though; their messes are huge! Mothers and housekeepers usually have to clean endlessly in the wake of their children and this sometimes makes us harder on them than we should be.

When you punish a child for the mess that comes with his or her creativity, you risk suppressing some crucial part of the child's psychological development. I am a mother of two pre-teenage girls and I can assure you, cleaning up after them all these years has been a lot of work. They clean up their messes now that they are older...thank goodness. What's the point of this rambling, you might ask? It is basically to help some parents, guardians, and caregivers understand that the mess their kids create isn't a ploy to drive them crazy and create more work; it is simply the children's way of expressing themselves freely and growing mentally and psychologically. Please check out the link below for more information about this topic;