How to Get the Kids Involved in The Garden

In today’s day and age, young children are spending much more time sat in front of a television screen or on a tablet, which is taking away from the fun, healthy activities that they should be spending their childhood enjoying. In order to promote a healthier lifestyle for your little ones, you should aim to encourage them to get involved and enjoy the great outdoors. Getting the kids out into the garden and helping out with easy yet stimulating tasks will really help them to grow, learn and have fun. 

The Right Supplies

You often find that in order to catch a child’s attention, you need something of interest to really ensure they’re engaged. Whilst explaining how much fun they’ll have in the garden is great, purchasing some child-friendly supplies will give that edge that your child will find of interest and encourage them to get their supplies and head out into the garden to put them to use. From child-friendly spades, wheelbarrows and other tools like these available at Spotty Green Frog. By investing in some safe, child-friendly gardening tools your little one will feel a sense of importance and feel responsible, which in turn will encourage them to get more hands on and take further interest. 

Simple Tasks

When introducing your child to the world of gardening, the last thing you want to do is set them up with tasks that are too difficult or boring, as this will instantly cause them to switch off and see gardening in a negative light. You want to encourage your child with tasks that are simple and easy yet rewarding. For example, planting seeds for sunflowers, carrots or cherry tomatoes is really easy to do and your child will be able to watch the whole growing process, as well as having some tasty veggies to enjoy at the end. Head to your local garden centre to stock up on some essential plastic plant pots, like these, as you don’t want to have heavy pots that your child can’t pick up or carry around. Other easy yet interactive gardening tasks for your little ones include raking up the leaves on the lawn, helping to keep the garden neat and tidy, looking for wildlife, pulling out unwanted weeds and so on. The BBC have a great guide on gardening with children which can be found here, for a little more inspiration. 

Give Them Control 

From a young age, children always want to be involved in adult tasks. Whether it’s helping with the dishes, hoovering the house or dusting the window ledges, you’ll notice that they want to get involved with certain tasks to feel more grown up and involved. This is why gardening is such a great outlet for children and really useful for their education too. By giving your child more control in the garden, setting them their own tasks and responsibilities, you are encouraging them to use their own initiative slightly and do what they think is right. If you feel they need a slight push in the right direction, you can help them and teach them as they go. 

Make it Fun

Children love to get muddy and dirty when playing outside, it’s simply one of the many parts of growing up. In order to make sure your child has fun whilst in the garden, don’t be afraid of them getting a little dirty or green fingered. Getting hands on in the soil and feeling the materials is all part of the learning process and it also provides hours of entertainment that will encourage your child to want to spend more time in the garden getting some much needed fresh air!