Children playing with mud may seem unhealthy for many parents, considering that they will become dirty. However, experts claim that as playgrounds become more sanitized, children are denied the opportunity to interact with nature.
Michael Follett, a children’s play specialist, is passionate about the benefits of children playing with mud. He claims, “It’s so tactile.” “You can use it as paint. You can squish it into a pot. You can make a mud pie. You can make cappuccinos!”
Follett is the founder and director of Opal (Outdoor Play and Learning), which assists schools in improving play opportunities, and a former playworker. He is enthusiastic about the benefits of unstructured outdoor play.
“It is so important for children’s mental and physical health to have access to green space and nature every day, and if the price of that is getting a bit muddy then we should embrace it.”
However, not everyone is confident about playing with mud for some obvious reasons. Recently, a primary school with a new mud playground in the north made headlines with their apology to parents and carers whose wards came home muddy, especially during heavy falls.
Lately, schools are revamping their outdoor play area, for example, the mud playground at Holsworthy Church of England primary school, which has a digging pit and mud café.
The headteacher, Amy Frost, said, “We felt our children needed something better at playtime and lunchtime.” “The playground [before] was pristine, but there was nothing for them to do. As schools, we have become fearful of allowing our children to take risks. It gets to the point where all risks are removed, and children don’t learn what risk is and how to manage risk.”
The school collaborated with a mentor from Opal and designed a different zone for muddy play, climbing and den building. To prevent kids from dirtying themselves, they wear ‘active uniforms’, especially P.E. They also wear waterproofs and wellies when the weather is bad. Hose attachments are also provided for rinsing mud.
According to Frost, parents are overwhelmed and supportive. However, a few comments find it “difficult to adjust”. A parent commented, “My son is caked in mud but he’s having fun!” one parent commented. Another added: “We’d rather do extra laundry and see them thrive.”
Follet also stated that uniforms are part of the problem. “They’re putting these children in ridiculous white socks, white shirts, pretty little dresses, court shoes. We should get Bear Grylls to design primary school uniform.”
Nowadays, fewer children in the United Kingdom play with mud. Children have less access to unstructured outdoor playgrounds because their playtime is more organized, and their playgrounds are more sanitized.
A professor of child psychology at the University of Exeter, Helen Dodd, stated: “The decline in children getting muddy is part of our risk aversion. We want to keep children safe and clean and tidy, and in doing so we stop children from doing the things that children naturally do.”
There have been gradual changes across generations. “But I think a lot of it is to do with just feeling: is it risky? What might be in the mud? If they put their fingers in their mouths, are they going to get poorly? We gradually got more and more risk averse and more controlling about what children can and can’t do.”
Dodd believes that books about parenting have contributed. “There’s increasingly been this idea that you can do parenting properly, that there’s a right way and a wrong way of doing it, and along with that, more judgment. And obviously protecting your child is a good thing to do in the general sense. Nobody wants their child to get hurt.”
All this while, you might wonder why kids should play in the mud. Dodd asserts, “When they’re young, that’s what they’ll do.”
“They’ll walk through muddy puddles, they’ll jump in them, they’ll splash, they’ll want to get their hands in there, feel what the mud feels like.
“If we want to give children space to connect with nature and understand nature, then they need to be able to do that in an unrestricted way, and a consequence of that is that they might get muddy.
“There’s also research about the benefits of being in contact with mud, just in terms of the biology of what’s in the mud, and how it affects our immune system. Also, in terms of sensory things. Lots of children now have sensory difficulties. They don’t like particular textures, they don’t like the feel of different things. And some of that might come from being kept overly clean.”
According to Follett, kids have never seen so much and experienced so little. “All of their experiences are secondary, through screens shut in bedrooms or strapped in buggies with iPads in front of them.
“What they’re lacking is real primary experience, touching, feeling, manipulating. You know that feeling of squeezing a handful of mud, and it all coming through, oozing through your fingers? You’re not going to get that playing Minecraft.”
