Summer holidays are that time of the year when kids relax but parents feel pressured to figure out how to engage them in some form of learning without being a killjoy. Gardening can be the answer.
Not An ‘Old-World’ Skill
In these competitive times, parents tend to favour more ‘contemporary’ skills, such as computing to gardening, which is seen as an ‘old-world’ skill. However, gardening is more than just a cute hobby. It is about learning to observe interactions between soil, water, sun, shade, smells, bugs and humans. Your balcony can thus be a microcosm of nature, where your child can experiment, connect dots and develop what the psychologist Howard Gardner describes as ‘naturalistic intelligence’. Such direct engagement with nature has no classroom substitute as it makes children know things not just by heart but in their hearts.
POSITIVE TRENDS
Thankfully, many progressive schools and parents are beginning to see gardening as part of education. Young parents are increasingly replacing traditional birthday party return favours with plants and grow-kits. Some are even introducing plants as first pets to their children, before they are ready for four-legged ones.
HACKS TO HOOK THEM
Hooking your digitally native children to gardening can be challenging initially. But, there are hacks that work. Grow-kits are a great way to get your kids started, especially if they contain illustrated guides and fun props like name-tags. In the beginning, if action takes too long, children’s excitement can fizzle out. So try fast-growing plants like micro-greens, which go from seed to harvest within 10 days. Mixing colours like green cress, purple radish and red amaranth, makes it even more exciting. Children also like plants that keep the drama going, like flowering and fruiting ones. Again, colour is exciting, as in cherry tomatoes or multi-coloured zinnia flowers, which also attract butterflies and hummingbirds. The only caveat here is that most flowering and fruiting plants, if grown from seeds, need transplantation and more care than the simpler leafy plants. If parents are not gardening savvy, they might want to introduce these as ‘level 2’ plants or start directly with saplings. Once your child has some initial confidence, then it is a good idea to up the challenge, let them experiment and even fail.
FEAR NO DIRT
Despite the advantages of gardening, some parents are still wary of it because they fear dirt. But research shows that exposure to these microbes is essential for developing their immunity. For example, epidemiological evidence shows that kids growing up in a farm environment have a much lesser chance of developing diseases like asthma. According to microbiologist Marie-Claire Arrieta, it is okay to let children play in backyards and even ‘eat some dirt’!
(The author is co-founder of greenopia.co)