Tips For Getting Your Child Involved In The Garden

More tips for getting the kids involved in the garden:

Involve your child in digging, growing from seed, to transplanting, etc…

Getting hands on is what it’s all about – and the bonus is you are also being exposed to beneficial microbes in soil – great for our immune system. Without making it too much about work, there are some tasks that need to be done in order to grow something from a seed into a plant. Involving your child in each step of the process will show them the magic of turning a seed into a growing plant – and you don’t need to be a gardening expert, you just need to follow the instructions on the packet.

You don’t need fancy tools

Having some child-sized tools on hand could make things easier for your child, but using any tools will stimulate their developing muscles, fine motor skills and coordination. You don’t really need an expensive, brightly coloured garden tool kit – some gloves that fit and a spade that they can manage is probably enough, possibly a small garden fork too. Digging dirt, spreading mulch, planting seeds – all of these are wonderful development opportunities for their little bodies.

Encourage your child in their area of interest

So your child is really resisting going outdoors, and instead prefers to read a book, or draw pictures… Bring that out into the garden. Encourage them to learn the names of flowers and vegetables. What kind of story could they write about the garden? Perhaps there are some goblins in that dark corner down the back, or fairies living beneath the zinnias. Encourage them to touch and taste the produce, and carry that over into what it is they DO like doing, and get creative.

Young children – toddler age – can be involved in the garden too. Give them a task to do while you’re out there – helping to dig a bed, or putting the weeds in the wheelbarrow, or playing with a bucket of water. Maybe they just move soil around with their favourite digger. It may mean your gardening time is less about getting things done and more about interacting with your child, but at least they’re out there with you. Just having them out there with you may encourage a love of the outdoors, of playing in the soil, so that later they want to get more involved in the plant-growing process.

Hannah Schenker is a freelance writer, editor and regular contributor to The Natural Parent Magazine. She lives with a touch of magic in Golden Bay, New Zealand.