Why Does My Child Keep Throwing, Dumping, or Ripping Things?

Amanda Bailey
Sep 3, 2025
2 min read

Updated: Oct 7, 2025

A Parent’s Guide to Understanding Schemas in Early Childhood

Is your child constantly throwing toys, ripping paper, or dumping out a box of blocks right after you’ve cleaned it up? You’re not alone! These repetitive actions can feel messy or even frustrating, but they’re actually part of something important called schemas (pronounced **skee·muhs
).

What Are Schemas?

Children naturally explore and make sense of the world through repeated patterns of behavior, called schemas. Using their bodies, senses, and actions, they test ideas like:

What happens if I drop this?
How does this feel when I pull it apart?
What fits inside what?

These behaviors may look random, but they’re powerful learning tools!

Child demonstrating the positioning schema.

Common Schemas You Might See

Trajectory Schema

When children throw, push, or drop objects, they’re exploring movement, speed, and gravity.

Why it matters: This builds understanding of cause and effect, spatial awareness, and coordination. These skills support later physical development and problem-solving.

Enclosure/Container Schema

When children love filling and dumping buckets, bags, or boxes, they’re learning about capacity, space, and sorting.

Why it matters: This supports early math concepts, such as volume, measurement, and categorization.

Tearing Schema

When children rip paper or take things apart, they’re exploring texture, strength, and how materials can change.

Why it matters: Tearing helps strengthen finger muscles and hand coordination. These skills are essential for writing and the development of small muscles in the fingers.

Positioning/Alignment Schema

When children line up or organize toys in patterns, they’re exploring order, symmetry, and relationships between objects.

Why it matters: This builds early pattern recognition, problem-solving, and mathematical thinking.

Which of these have you seen your child do the most?

Throwing or dropping things (Trajectory Schema)
Filling and dumping containers (Enclosure Schema)
Ripping paper or pulling things apart (Tearing Schema)
Lining up or organizing toys (Positioning Schema)

How Parents Can Support Schemas at Home

Supporting your child's exploration is crucial. Here are some effective strategies:

✔️ Offer Safe Materials: Provide engaging materials like scrap paper, cardboard, soft balls, and empty containers.
✔️ Add Language to Play: Use phrases like, “You’re testing how far it goes!” or “You’re seeing what fits inside.”
✔️ Encourage Clean-Up Time: Teach responsibility and pride in their learning by encouraging them to clean up after play.
✔️ Recognize Learning Opportunities: Remember, it’s not misbehavior. It’s how children build knowledge about their world!

Responsibility Through Schemas

What might look like a mess is actually a learning opportunity. When children clean up after exploring, they develop responsibility and pride in their work.

Why it matters: This supports self-regulation, respect for their environment, and independence.

How Do We Use Schemas at Early Spark Academy?

At Early Spark Academy, we carefully observe children’s play to see which schemas they’re exploring. We then design meaningful learning experiences that build on their natural curiosity and interests.