Nursery World - Positive Relationships: Let's talk about ... Dirty children

Who should decide how messy a child is allowed to be when they're at nursery? Annette Rawstrone spoke to a group of senior nursery practitioners.

Q: Why is it important for children to be allowed to get dirty?

We expect our children to experiment with things as much as possible so that they can learn from it. Child-initiated learning involves exploration and being inquisitive - and that's messy.

It's also a risk issue. Children have to be free to experiment, and that often involves getting messy. They need to have a go.

Children can be too clean and then don't build up their immune system - they have sterilised childhoods.

If a particular child does not like getting dirty, then as early years professionals we sit back, make the observations and plan how to introduce that activity to them in a different, positive way so that they can experience different things.

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