Getting your children excited about helping in the garden is a great idea. Having your kids help in the garden will not only be a help to you and help take a bit of the responsibility off your shoulder but it will also provide your children with some amazing benefits. It’s never too soon to let your kids help you in the garden.
Here’s why you should get your kids gardening as soon as possible:
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Gardening Gets Your Kids Outdoors
Many children are becoming indoor creatures that enjoy watching tv and spend too much time glued to games and devices. Anything that can cut down on your children’s screen time and get them outdoors to spend a little time in the sun and sand is brilliant. There is no denying it that being outside and active in the fresh air is good for your kids health.
Gardening Engages All The Senses
When gardening children get to feel, to see, to smell and to hear what is happening around them while they go about their gardening duties. Gardening is an amazing sensory activity that help your children to learn about the world around them.
Gardening Encourages Fine Motor Development
Completing activities around the garden will help your child’s fine motor development – filling little trays with soil and plantings seeds, pouring a little bit of water into each pot and picking out little weeds are all things that will help your child with other activities such as writing.
Gardening Teach Kids Patience
What better way to teach your kids to be dedicated to a task and to understand delayed gratification than getting them to plant seeds and wait for them to sprout and later on to flower or to grow fruit, vegetables and salads. When their efforts do finally yield results it will be a great source of pride and excitement for your kids.
Gardening Teaches Kids To Focus
Teaching your kids gardening will show them how to pay attention and focus on the task at hand. Things like weeding, mowing the lawn and pruning entails that your child stay focused.
Your child will also learn that gardening must be done on a regular basis otherwise everything will get overgrown with weeds and some plants will die if they are not watered on a regular basis. This will teach your child discipline.
Gardening Encourages Physical Activity
It is essential that our kids be kept physically active,. Taking part in gardening activities will mean your child gets regular exercise while completing the necessary tasks.
Pushing a lawn mower or a wheel barrow will help your child build muscle, raking up leaves or grass cuttings will work other muscles and get your child’s heart pumping.
Gardening Teaches Kids Responsibility
Children need to learn to take some responsibility for themselves and do their bit around the home. Having children do chores from an early age is a great idea and including gardening chores will be fun and teach them about responsibility.
If a garden is not tended to the lawn and plants will die and the garden will no longer be a beautiful place to play. Teaching children how to tend the garden will help to show them that everyone needs to pitch in.
Gardening Teaches Children About Food
It is a great idea to grow fruit, vegetables and salads. Not only will it help to drastically cut down on your grocery bill, it will also provide your family with health and organic food while also offering the perfect way to teach your child how food is grown and produced.
Having your children take part in growing food for the family will give your child skills that he can make use of for the rest of his life. It can also give your child a great sense of pride that will help build good self esteem.
If your child is helping to grow the food that goes on the table there is a much better chance that your child will be keen to eat the healthy food that is grown.
Gardening Is Relaxing
Gardening is relaxing, for adults and children – it is a natural stress reliever. There is nothing quite like getting your hands dirty – there is something grounding about putting your hands into the earth.
Gardening Can Provide Family Bonding Time
All too often in this modern time family members can be living in the same home, but never really connecting. Gardening on a regular basis can provide a relaxing way to spend time with your children and bond with them.
Make a set time each weekend for gardening, get some music going and plan to have a fun picnic when all the gardening chores are done so you can admire the work that you have done together.