Who knew getting messy not only can be lots of fun for your kids, but beneficial! You may sometimes as a parent want to grab the wipes and paper towels when you know a mess is coming, but first check this out before you call for the cleaning arsenal.

Free play and allowing your kids to explore their messy sides, aides in many areas of natural development. Here are some of the ways that it can show to be beneficial:

Spatial/body awareness: Exploring your environment in a variety of ways such as rolling, running, going up-side down, sliding on your tummy, etc. helps with learning where your body is in comparison to your environment. Messy play and more tactile input helps in increasing this awareness during these different positions. Being allowed to fall, roll around and rough-house increases balance, coordination and overall safety, due to knowing your body and how it moves.

Creativity and imagination: Allowing your children to explore the messes they make and interpret them the way they want builds upon their imaginations and encourages creativity.

Health: Letting my child make a mess keeps them healthy? Think of it this way, the child that is outside making mud pies and sliding down the slide into the puddles is getting a lot more movement than the child in front of the tv or the computer. Not that those things are bad, but good old-fashioned play shouldn't be a lost art.

Increases Self-Regulation: Allowing kids to run, jump in puddles, dig in the sand, etc. is going to increase their overall regulation during the day. The more movement during the day, the better they sleep, eat and learn. Not restricting the play and allowing them to get dirty or messy, as long as it's safe of course, encourages them to continue seeking out the movement that they need.

Problem solving skills and motor planning: If we clean up our children immediately, every time they get dirty or keep them from messy situations all together, we are not letting them build upon their problem solving skills. Letting them explore in messy play builds upon problem solving and overall motor planning. How messy can I get? What happens when I put it in my hair? Can I wipe it off with my hand? Does my friend like it when I touch them with messy hands? They begin to figure out things on their own and form their own answers to their questions. It can also aide in learning appropriate social cues as well over time.

We all remember how much fun it was to get messy as a kid and why wouldn't we want our children to experience the same thing? So remember to put aside those remotes and keyboards every now and then and go get messy!

A pencil grip can be a quick and easy fix to an awkward grasp. There is such a huge variety of them out there, but how do you know what ones to choose. Here's some quick tips on how to choose a pencil grasp for your child.

The Simpler the Better: If your child needs a pencil grip, they are most likely having difficulty planning how to hold the pencil in the first place. Keep it simple so the grip doesn't become as frustrating as the pencil initially was to hold. It will also make it easier to transfer from pencil to pencil if needed and recall how to hold it correctly each time.

Look at the concerns: The type of pencil grasp that your child will use is going to depend on what the areas of concern are when they are holding the pencil. Here are some common concerns, along with which direction to possibly take:

-          Low tone (fine motor weakness): This can be observed one of 2 different ways. One such way is when your child is holding the pencil too loosely and often resorts to an awkward grasp to compensate. The other way is they will look like they are actually applying too much force when writing and are using it as an over-compensation for the weakness. Thicker or jumbo grips are usually easier for these kiddos to hold onto and can cut back on some of the force when writing concerns. Weighted pencils or grips can also help in some cases, so the child doesn't feel the need to push down the pencil so hard when writing.

-          Motor Planning: This is when your child just can't seem to get the motor patterns correct for holding the pencil. These are the kids that the more simple the grip the better. Single grips or crossover grips would be most beneficial for these kids.

-          Kinesthetic feedback: These kids usually grip the pencil with a tight fisted grasp or barrel grasp. They're looking for input when writing in order to fill a sensory need, as well as give them some proprioceptive feedback to assist with guiding the pencil. Wider or jumbo pencil grips or textured ones may be most beneficial for these kids.

Make it Fun: There's different colors, shapes and even grips with glitter. You want to get the right type of grip, but you want your child to be excited about using it as well. Let them choose colors or other features of the pencil grip as long as it doesn't impede overall function of what you wanted it to do originally.

It's not forever: Pencil grips are just to encourage the use of an appropriate grasp for the time being and not to use as a permanent fix. It should assist your child in making the grasp more of a habit and you should be able to eventually end up with no use of no grasp at all. Just another helpful trick along the way.