How to encourage your children to start gardening

One of the biggest concerns for parents today is getting children away from their technology and out into nature. While there is nothing wrong with the games console, the tablet or laptop, these are passive activities and keep young people indoors. One way a parent can do this is to get their child out into the garden. Not only is it a way to encourage your child to exercise, but it could also spark a new interest and creativity that leaves them with plenty of ways to fill their time.

Here we offer some hints and tips for getting your kids to enjoy gardening and spending time outside.

Start with seeds indoors

We all remember when we planted some cress in a pot and left it on the windowsill as children. Most of us felt awed as the stalks and leaves pushed through the soil as if from nowhere and even more amazed when we mixed it with eggs for our sandwiches.

Starting with an indoor garden and small with seeding pots allows gardening to be child-sized and not too much like hard work. You are essentially working to garner interest here, and the child’s curiosity will likely pull them into wanting to do more.

Set up a vegetable garden

There is nothing more magical than going into the garden and picking food that you can then eat. For a kid, growing veg is a wonderful experience. If potatoes seem a bit of an ambitious starting point here, then edible flowers or fruits are a great way to begin an interest in gardening, as there is a quick and attractive end-product for the kids to enjoy.

Most parents who do end up cultivating a veg patch with the kids also find that they are more likely to want to eat them when they appear on the plate. Therefore, there are many wins from encouraging your children to grow food with you.

Wanting to be just like you

When our children are really small, they mostly just want to be like mummy and daddy. There will be an innate desire to be with you and to do the same things. Here is an opportunity to get your youngsters into the habit of gardening. When you are watering, you could give your kids a small watering can and have them potter around sprinkling water too.

Kids also love mud. If you start digging in the garden, you can bet they would love to get dirty too. Setting up a mud kitchen to mimic what they see you doing, you will start to see a love of being in nature.

Highlight the “what’s in it for me?”

Like any human, children want to understand what they will get out of the effort of gardening. While some of the little people will get some joy out of working in the mud alongside you, others need more incentive. There are many opportunities for turning the work in the garden into something that feels like it pays.

For instance, you could use the garden as a means of encouraging a little enterprise and money-making. Growing herbs and drying them, the kids can turn these into scented bags for sale or gifts. Alternatively, you could show the kids how to get seeds from crops and help them package these to sell too.

Equally, you could give chores in the garden as part of the contribution to the family. There are jobs they can do that can be rewarded with pocket money.

Build a den with its own outdoor space

A den is a brilliant way to get your kids out into the garden. Whether it is a hideaway amongst some willow or a full-on tepee, you can encourage your children to love the outdoors by giving them their own space. Decorating and personalising the indoor area can be massively fun. However, it may be even better to give them a garden around the den that they are responsible for. It might be that this is built with mud and stones and bark. Alternatively, you could get the children to choose the plants that they want in this space. Ownership is an excellent motivator for some, and knowing it is their garden, not mum’s or dad’s, will encourage them to want to tend to it.

Overall

Although these are all cool hints and tips, underlying each of them is fun and togetherness. Being alongside your child in the garden to do some of these activities will start building the memories and nostalgia that will embed a lifetime love of the outdoors.

Fitness Professionals