Do your kids like to be outside? Maybe they love going down to the park or spending time at the beach, but do they like helping out in the garden as well? Probably not! Gardening can be a hard hobby to encourage, thanks to just how much hard work it can be, and the kids might find it boring after about 10 minutes. But if you’re a soil lover and would like to get the kids into the garden a bit more, it’s not a lost cause. Check out the tips down below that might just convince them to give planting, mowing, and tilling another try.
Let Them Draw Up a Gardening Plan
Kids love to have a bit of control over something in their lives; they get told what to do a million times a day on a regular basis! So when you want to encourage them to pick up a fun and healthy new hobby, get them involved on this personal level. What do they want to get out of gardening? Maybe they’d like to do a bit of landscaping with you, that’ll transform the look of your lawn or vegetable patch? You won’t know until you let them draw up a gardening plan of their own!
Paint Pots, Sticks, and Garden Furniture
Kids love to get a bit creative and use their imagination with craft materials, so let them paint plant pots, label sticks, and even some garden tools and furniture. Of course, if you’ve just bought a new three piece seating set you can leave the last one out! But if you’ve got some old wicker chairs kicking around in the shed, let them paint and draw and stick feathers and sequins to them. At the very least this’ll encourage them to spend more time outside.
Show Them the Basics
The basics of gardening are hard to learn. If you want your kids to find gardening fascinating, walk through these basics in a minute, step by step manner. Show them how to use a trowel, and tell them why it’s important for the worms to be in the soil. Ask them what plants they think would be best to seed and why – they might have a very interesting answer for you! Indeed, the more you talk about why gardening can be fun and important, the bigger a role it’ll have in your child’s life.
Don’t Be Afraid to Get Messy!
Gardening is a messy activity, by default. As adults, we can protect quite easily against this. But for kids, this is part of the magic. So, make sure the kids have lots of mud and dirt to clean off when they head back inside. Getting messy can be a lot of fun simply because it’s usually ‘not allowed’, so encourage the kids to get grass stains on their knees, even if they’re hard to get out!
Gardening is a very rich hobby, and could be great for your kids to try out!
Speak Your Mind