Dirt can be good for children

‘Children should be allowed to get dirty’ according to scientists who have found being too clean can impair the skin's ability to heal, reported recently in this article from the BBC

It goes on to say that researchers from the School of Medicine in California believe that normal bacteria which lives on the skin trigger a pathway that helps prevent inflammation when we get hurt. The bugs dampen down overactive immune responses that can cause cuts and grazes to swell. Many believe our obsession with cleanliness is to blame for the recent boom in allergies in developed countries:

• Some experts are saying that the findings could provide an explanation for the ‘hygiene hypothesis’, which states that exposure to germs during early childhood primes the body against allergies.
• The lobby group Parents Outloud said the work offered scientific support for its campaign to stop children being mollycoddled and over-sanitised.
• A spokeswoman for Allergy UK said there was a growing body of evidence that exposure to germs was a good thing.

So what do you think? Should we be exchanging bubble baths for mud baths and are we in fact cleaning our hands, clothes, homes etc too much and ‘washing away’ all the fun of messy, outdoor play?

For parents, it can present a big dilemma. With literally 100s of adverts on TV and in newspapers and magazines telling us to kill every germ in sight, people do it, with the best intentions to ensure children have as healthy an environment as possible. Let’s think back though . . . how many of you scrambled through mud and squealed in equal delight and repulsion when you discovered a worm? Now be honest, how many of you wondered what it would feel or even, dare I say it, taste like? In my experience, slightly gritty with an earthy aftertaste – rather like the feel of spaghetti. The worm was cleaner when I put him back in the soil but I wasn’t and it felt great and here I am to tell the tale! Now I don’t recommend the activity generally but what I was doing, reflecting back, was engaging in imaginative, investigative and ultimately messy, dirty fantastic play and I was also discovering my world and taking risks (as well as finding out what a worm tasted like). And often returning to my mum with dirty grazed knees from falling over in stony soil, she would wipe away the blood and mud and send me off with a wagon wheel (which of course were much bigger back then!).

In fact aren’t we encouraging children to play outdoors even more now? Isn’t there also a huge campaign to get them out and about to grow their own vegetables in the garden – to dig, to sow, to plant, to harvest, to get out in all weathers and connect with the earth – I’d rather have a happy, stress-free muddy child than one who’s reluctant to get clothes dirty for fear of reprisal. Stick some old clothes on, that’s what I did.

So, as long as we remember the general rules of washing hands after the toilet and before touching and eating food, immune systems will balance themselves out, leaving children more time to discover their inner explorers, gardeners, botanists, zoologists, etc as they keep busy with playing and learning – the thing they do best!

Liz Smallman is Head of Learning at Eureka!