Is it time to think differently about being tidy?

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” American comedian Phyllis Diller 

While Instagram homes seem to be full of children who get one toy out and then put it straight back when they’ve finished – the reality is that young children’s play is often not tidy! We think it’s time to get real about what playing at home looks like... 

Many of us have plans before we have children that they will just have a couple of carefully selected playthings, kept neatly on a shelf or in a box – or even in a playroom.  

But you might be starting to realise …. 

Their play needs time to grow 

Sometimes your toddler needs to come back to something they’ve been playing with over time. They have an idea and have spent ages building a house, train track, farm, or whatever and if you put it away, they lose all that thinking and have to start again. 

Brains learn by doing 

Exploring your ideas when you’re little involves moving things, getting things out, looking at things and combining things in different ways; this is all great thinking, but not always tidy!  

We can start to view mess differently 

Maybe, accepting that there might be things out, but seeing that as productive helps – your house might not be Instagrammable – but your toddler is learning.  

Everyone has their own threshold for comfortable chaos 

At the end of some days you just want to sit down and watch TV, and a tidy house doesn’t feel quite as important as having a bit of a rest. You might find you can’t relax until everything is tidy – which might shift your priorities! 

If you can, find a place where you are happy for there to be some productive mess – this might be a corner of a room, or somewhere that you don’t need to look at or tidy every day!