Teaching children life lessons through gardening.
As we begin to thaw after a brutal Winter, it is time to turn our eyes to the outdoors. Fresh air, bright sunshine, and nurturing new life with your littles – how can you go wrong? LUXYMOM® is bringing you three reasons why gardening is not only food for body, but also food for the soul.
A beautiful and simple project like planting a garden can teach our kiddos three essential lessons: Persistence, patience, and compassion.
A couple years ago, I decided to plant a vegetable garden with my daughter. I love fresh herbs, so I made sure to have some sprinkled throughout my DIY planters, and we had so much fun watching the garden grow. When we ate our first tomatoes, it was so gratifying to see my daughter have pride that she had patience, persistence, and compassion for our project.
Persistence
Children can grow a sense of responsibility and stamina from taking part in the family garden or developing their own. Regular chores and maintenance of the garden such as weeding, watering, and pruning can really create a sense of pride and a need to complete a task to see the work pay off.
A garden isn’t always easy, and it can be hard and frustrating watching problems with fungus, infiltrators like rabbits, and the dreaded yellow tomato leaf – this has plagued me on more than one garden.
Your child will be encouraged to problem solve and think of ways they can reduce these issues without giving up on their garden. For my family, we incorporated math problems for measuring water and plant food. My daughter also worked with my husband to build a fence to keep out the critters that wanted to share in her garden’s bounty.
Mindful Compassion
Watching my daughter in our garden was always so lovely. She would sit and talk to the caterpillars who were eating her vegetables leaves, and she would gently set them down across the yard.
I would ask her what she was doing, and she would say, “Buggies need to eat, too.” I’d just smile at her and revel in the fact that she was not frustrated.
Oh goodness, when the squirrels started getting into the garden and digging holes, she would thank them for digging her a new spot to plant a seed. She really cared about everything – from the plants all the way to the little bugs that could have been their demise.
Gardening is a nice foundation for teaching your children to care for the needs and experiences of others, from a plant to a person. Mindful awareness develops as your child starts to get a rhythm for taking care of something alive and growing.
Patience
I don’t think there is a child alive born with natural patience. With kiddos, it is hard for them to really understand the time it takes to create life on a normal verbal platform, but show them, and they light up!
When you plant a garden, your child can see something they planted, cared for, and tended to, grow right before their eyes. For a child, waiting is the hardest part. But gardening reinforces them to respect the pace of living things.
This lesson can be applied all through life and on their own psyche. Far too often, children or teens compare themselves to others and their developmental progress. Gardening can show our littles that every life is precious and grows at its own perfect pace.
Growing your own garden is fulfilling, magical, and can inspire your kiddo to respect the outdoors. Not only is it a great activity to get the whole family out into the sunshine, but it rewards your little with precious gems that they themselves grew and nurtured. So, get outside with your kiddos, LUXYMOM®, and grow life lessons with your family this Spring.
Bonus: You can even shop our stylish Spring gardening essentials over on our Amazon shop.