Let your kids make the mess

Parenting is the kind of thing that teaches you so many valuable life lessons inadvertently. I feel like I am always learning or gaining a newfound perspective on something once mundane.

I found myself in that kind of particular situation the other day. My son has been building his independency a lot more, and so most of the common day-to-day things that we would do for him (washing his face, brushing his teeth, etc), he’s been taking on for himself. That day, he had woken up and went into the bathroom to do his morning routine of pottying, brushing his teeth, and washing his face.

I went in there after a while to check on him and, neat freak that I can be sometimes, was instantly concerned with the mess he was making as he was trying to put toothpaste on his toothbrush. My initial response was to step in and do it for him, limiting any further potential mess that could be made. But before I could do so, a switch suddenly flicked on inside my head: I needed to allow him the opportunity to do this for himself.

You see, kids need to make messes. And yet, often from what I’ve seen and maybe even partially from what I experienced growing up, kids are prevented from or limited in making the mess.

But mess is how you learn. It is how you engage your senses, gain practice through trial and error, attain information.

You rarely learn from neatness. And that doesn’t just go for children, that goes for any of us — adults included.

As an adult, I make messes all the time. It may not be literal messes like getting toothpaste all over the bathroom sink, but I go through trial and error as I live this life of mine. And doing so builds my ability to operate/function more fully. So why would I deny my child of that same experience?

Denying kids the mess deprives them of the chance to become inquisitive.

It used to grind my gears when my son’s room would look like a pigsty, and I would march right on in there and clean it up for him. But lately, I’ve been letting him learn the process of cleaning the messes he’s made. Because doing so allows him to take responsibility of tending to the messes he makes in life — whether big or small, literal or metaphorical.

The mess is where life is lived. The mess is where we gain grit. It’s where we build confidence through lived experience as opposed to constantly being swayed and guided by others.

So let your kids make the mess. Because in the mess is where they will expand. It is where they will find the language for their humanness. It is where they will learn repair, autonomy, advocacy, and so much more. It is where they will gain evidence, and where their stories will unfold.

I wanted to share the following passage written by Sihle Jakes, who wrote a beautiful piece that I feel pairs strongly in this context: There is an assumption embedded in advice culture that young people are fragile. That we must be protected from our own curiosity. That failure will break us rather than shape us. I reject that. I don’t need to be spared from experience. I need to be allowed to have it. Let me touch the stove. Let me find out what burns me, not what burned you. Let me discover my own thresholds. Let me earn my discernment honestly, through contact, not caution. And if it all goes wrong? Worst case scenario, I get a story. I get a memory I can return to. A perspective that belongs to me—not something I reposted, memorised, or inherited.