Watch These Babies Learn Crucial Cognitive Skills Just By Destroying Their Dinner

The following was produced in partnership with our friends at Fisher-Price, who encourage you to #EmbraceTheMess with their new 4-in-1 Total Clean High Chair.

If your baby is a messy eater, they’re not just destroying your carpets (and walls and why did you hang that painting so close to the table again?) — they’re getting a jump on vocabulary, motor skills, and a gang of developmental milestones. Studies show that kids who make a mess of their foods learn to identify and name them faster than kids who don’t. Researchers found that the skills are context-dependent, meaning when kids consistently poke, mush, and fling (sorry) food in a specific place, at a specific time, they learn faster — and they found that messy eaters who consistently ate meals in a high chair learned the most.

All of which is to say Junior’s high chair is the ultimate toddler classroom, at least when it comes to figuring out what’s for dinner. So make sure yours is super easy to clean and maybe think about moving those paintings somewhere out of flinging range. Like the garage.

Fisher-Price designed the 4-in-1 Total Clean High Chair with easy cleaning in mind, so you can quickly break down the top half, put it in the dishwasher, and move on to the most important meal of the day: a nightcap.