By Jane Marsh
Spending time with your children can do more than create memories. You can also use that time to teach them lifelong skills. This guide explains what you can teach your children through gardening, no matter how they participate.
1. Fine Motor Skills
Everyone needs fine motor skills. They’re how you grasp your coffee cup in the morning and use a pen to sign your name. Kids learn fine motor skills through playtime and feeding, but they can also enhance their skills by gardening. Let your kids dig with miniature hand shovels and operate the hose to use their hand-eye coordination more often.
Kids learn fine motor skills through playtime and feeding, but they can also enhance their skills by gardening.
2. An Appreciation for Nature
Spending time outside with plants will teach children the complexity behind all of the plants they see. They’ll understand how long it takes for trees to grow and fruit to ripen, contrasting with destructive human activities they’ll observe throughout their lives like deforestation and food waste.
You don’t need a backyard to kickstart your child’s love for the environment. Anyone can start a garden by stapling landscaping fabric to a pallet and keeping it upright on their porch. As long as the plant has a place to form roots, your family can garden however they want.
3. A Passion for Sustainability
Your family’s plants will need fertilizer at some point, so use your newly shared hobby to start a compost bin. The bin helps waste naturally break down into fertilizer without any added chemicals. Just ensure you only add suitable materials, like eggshells, newspaper and coffee grounds.
When kids know how to get rid of waste and improve their plant’s growth without harming the environment, they’ll begin to value sustainability. Appreciating the planet and the work it takes to provide for yourself will help them make better choices when they’re independent adults.
When kids know how to get rid of waste and improve their plant’s growth without harming the environment, they’ll begin to value sustainability.
4. Time Management Skills
Kids who know how to manage their time effectively do better while studying, completing homework and maintaining social relationships. They’ll practise that ability by scheduling when they’ll water their plants and when their vegetables need harvesting. They just need to start taking care of a single plant.
5. A Greater Sense of Responsibility
When children are in charge of raising a plant, they gain a new level of responsibility. It’s an ongoing challenge that won’t result in anything harmful if they make a mistake. As they watch their plants grow, they’ll also learn how rewarding it feels to successfully follow through on a responsibility.
