Introduction
Life is not easy in the 21st century, for either parents or kids. While parents are upheld to impossible standards, they must walk the fine line of balance between professional and family life. Kids, on the other hand, have it no easier with their days being thronged by school, tuition, and co-curriculars. Only a handful of them go out to play, with the rest unwinding as a couch potato with their smart devices. While the rest is well-deserved, the way of enjoying leisure is unhealthy. Such sedentary lifestyles can lead to chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and more.
But if your kid’s days are packed with activities, why not have them try their hand at gardening? Other than being a wonderful physical activity, its psychological benefits are endless for kids. Also, due to the current education pattern, consistent tests make sure kids focus more of their time in academics than playing or doing creative works. This can often end up being too taxing for children, forming frustration and anxiety in them. Gardening daily for even 20 or 30 minutes in the beginning, can boost your kid’s physical health and fitness. As for their mental well-being and psychological benefits, here’s a short guide.
Psychological Benefits Of Gardening For Kids
Develops Mindfulness
Gardening is almost meditative by nature. By entrusting your kids to a safe, natural space, you are letting them breathe in fresh air and focus on each breath, while doing manual garden work. This helps them focus on the present and enjoy the mindless labor, getting messy and free-spirited.
Lowers Stress And Anxiety
Since gardening involves engaging with soil, it automatically helps lower stress and enhance mood. This is because of the presence of mycobacterium vaccae, a bacteria present in the soil that improves secretion of serotonin by stimulating the brain. Serotonin is a hormone that improves mood and lowers stress in kids.
Enhances Empathy
Taking care of plants, watering and tending to them daily, interacting with various creatures big and small enhances kindness and empathy in children. It also instills appreciation of all life forms in children, along with gratitude for their own birth as humans.
Teaches Responsibility
Gardening teaches kids how to be responsible for a living or multiple living beings. Despite being static, plants possess life and sensations, and taking good care of them becomes a responsibility your kid cannot avoid on a clean conscience. Add positive reinforcement into the mix in the beginning to attract your kids towards a healthy hobby.
Soothes Their Mind
Gardening has a soothing effect on kids, helping their minds and bodies unwind. After the daily stress of studies, kids find it easier to relax in the lap of nature, away from prying eyes and voices. Interacting with plants, digging soil, pulling weeds, all these manual activities help kids let go of all stress and fears and just have fun.
Boosts Problem Solving Abilities
Gardening is a great way to solve difficult problems by getting out of one’s mind. Often, kids get stuck in the rut by trying to solve a problem in the familiar way repeatedly. Gardening helps see things with a different perspective and helps your kid’s mind respond well to problems.
Acts As A Healthy Coping Mechanism
Being a healthy physical and psychological occupation, gardening is a wonderful coping mechanism for negative emotions and conflicts. Instead of raging and lashing out, let your kids pour their restless, or furious energy into digging, composting, weeding, or simply breathing in the fresh, open air.
Tips To Involve Kids In Gardening
- Teach your kids nutrition through gardening. Let them choose vegetables and fruits they like and plant their seeds together. Those plants will be under your kid’s eye and will be tended to, only by them.
- This will help kids form a bond with healthy foods and gardening. Once those plants grow well and provide fruits, take them and go cooking together.
- After the meal, take some leftover seeds and plant them again to keep the cycle and garden going. This will keep your kids invested in the long run.
- Set weekly nature goals. If your child’s garden fulfills the goal, praise and reward your kids. This will keep them involved and engrossed in gardening for the right reasons.
- Use various waste products around the house, like empty egg cartons, bulbs, watering cans, and jars, as reusable flowerpots. Paint them together with your kids and then use them in the garden to add their personal, environmentally friendly artistic touch.
Conclusion
Gardening has multiple psychological benefits for kids in addition to its various physiological health benefits. From keeping all kinds of diseases at bay to ensuring your child’s heart and mind are healthy, gardening does it all for your kids. So, give this guide a try and make the most of gardening’s wonderful psychological influence on kids.
The views expressed are that of the expert alone.
