Why is my Older Child doing full blown messy play again?
Amanda Kyle, MA-CCC, SLP
Having an older child that weans from a tube can present a whole different set of challenges, some of which are tied directly to ‘eating age’ vs chronological age. Eating age starts ticking once you are 100% orally fed: for non-tube fed children, this aligns with their chronological age (or the birth age) because we still expect eating skills to develop along their typical age progression. But when there is a big gap between a child’s “eating age” and “chronological age,” behaviors around food can revert down to match eating age more than actual age – including the reversion back to the stage of full-blown messy play with foods.
While it may be frustrating when your child who is otherwise developing skills, table manners, etc. dives hands first into a giant pile of food, there is actually a developmental milestone hidden in there. Messy play helps kids to gather sensory data about foods (does it squish? Crunch? Shatter? Crumble? Etc.). This also helps their bodies to integrate this sensory information and predict what’s coming. This acts as a warm-up to the child bringing these foods to their mouth.
While messy play provides valuable insight and skill for the child, it is also appropriate as a parent to place boundaries around what kind of messy play is helpful – and what’s just a mess. A few differentiations that might be helpful include
That it is ok to get hands messy, but not ok to put food in your hair.
That it’s important to wipe hands before touching furniture or other people.
That squishing food is different than splatting food (“gentle hands, please!”).
We can also create opportunities to allow kids to explore foods in preparation, not just eating. My favorite is including kids in the cooking. Can they stir with a spoon, knead dough, mix items with their hands? Can they chop items with a kid safe knife? Can they pick the colors that go in the smoothie? These activities help build skills motorically, as well as provide a low-pressure way to interact and explore foods because the focus is not on eating, but instead preparing.
Both messy play and preparing foods also provide great opportunities to learn language around mealtimes, too! Giving them descriptor words such as color names, texture feelings, verbs (squish, mash, stir, etc.), talking about how foods change when you cook them (eggs are liquid until we cook them) – all of this allows kids to experience how foods change as we add other ingredients. Giving words to all of this information helps kids to not only build their linguistic knowledge, but also to make sense of their food-full world. It’s also something that can start very early – and just continue to grow! Even with older kids who are newly oral exploring a whole new world!
Full blown messy play can be a difficult stage, especially with older children. However, this stage will pass as they grow more familiar with a variety of foods and textures, as well as build more confidence in their ability to feed themselves.