Boy likes water too much

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Looking for ideas to help get my son out of the kitchen and bathroom sinks. He just flooded the kithen while I was looking for ways to integrate a shutoff valve above countertop. Water was running into the dining room. He's been constantly at the sinks playing in the water last couple weeks. Any ideas or advise would be greatly appreciated.

How old is he ?

I solved a similar issue by setting up a water table in the backyard -- my water loving offspring stayed away from the kitchen and the bathrooms and would play happily in the backyard (for hours, if I let them). Whew, what a relief !

During the winter, I moved the water table into the laundry room (a small area), and contained the mess to that small area. You could also set up a water table in the bathroom (if big enough) OR in a corner of the basement (if you have one) or any enclosed and warm space during the cooler months.

Mostly water play is sensory and it is better to give access to it, rather than forbid it entirely (forbidding never works, anyway, as you probably found out).

Hope this helps.

Lol yes, after shutting off the water supply he headed to the upstairs bathroom. He is 6 and definitely too cold for now. We have a water table outside. I was trying to think of something sensory to replace it with that would be less messy, but they are all very messy indoors. Some days I'd like to just redo the floors with floor drains and just let them go for it.

What about the bathtub? Most bathtubs are hard to overflow because of the overflow catch valve, though if he splashes excessively he could still make a mess.

A few ideas:

* try filling the bath one third too, then opening a bag of ball pit balls and pouring them in to float on time.
* so many different games:
** try to hold all the balls under the water.
** counting the balls by colours
** count them without touching them
** splash, sploosh, bounce them etc etc.

the balls stop the splashing from getting everywhere while also being fun and wow.