Consider this scenario: You and your family spend every weekend tending to your plants. You hear the amusement from your kids when they see how they’ve grown a tomato. With animated words, they tell you how they’re the ones who planted and watered them. From there alone, you can see that they have already made a special connection to what they sowed. If you want this to become a reality for your family, then you should add gardening as a family activity.
So are you ready to learn how gardening is one family bonding experience you should try at least once?
Gardening as a Family Bonding Experience
Whether you have a large garden or just a few pots on a windowsill, gardening as a family provides more than just beautiful flowers and tasty vegetables. It fosters bonding, encourages outdoor activity, and teaches valuable life skills such as responsibility and patience. Additionally, gardening can offer opportunities for creativity and self-expression, whether through designing colorful flower beds or experimenting with different plant combinations. Consider incorporating special touches like anniversary flowers to commemorate milestones and add sentimental value to your garden space.
Provides Learning Opportunity
Learning shouldn’t be confined to the four walls of the classroom. Sometimes, it’s okay to let your children see the world in a different light. Gardening is one of those activities that will allow them to learn. Children are curious. They will ask questions even for minute changes they will see, and this is where their experiential learning starts.
However, learning is for everyone. Even parents can learn something new when they do gardening. They will know what soil is best to use for specific plant types. When they need to make calculations, they will learn conversions. They can use a top soil calculator to measure soil requirements accurately.
Good for Mental Health
Toiling with soil and watching plants grow is also good for your family’s mental health. It allows family members to discover their creative side simply by thinking of the garden’s layout. Engaging in gardening effectively lowers cortisol, the stress hormone. Also, imagine growing a plant and harvesting the fruits.
Promotes Physical Health
Did you know that gardening can burn up to 330 calories an hour? That’s the same amount you might burn playing golf or dancing.
Remember, though, to have good posture when carrying heavy pots and bags of soil. But the benefits don’t stop at muscle strengthening. Gardening also improves bone health. Sun exposure while gardening provides Vitamin D. However, make sure that you still wear suitable sunscreen to protect against skin cancer.
Encourages Healthy Eating
Know the phrase, “You are what you eat?” You’re encouraged to eat well when you have a special connection to your food.
There’s a significant difference in taste and nutrition between freshly picked fruits and vegetables and those stored and transported. Eating straight from the garden ensures your meals are free from harmful pesticides or additives. You get the assurance that you are consuming clean food. Plus, picking food from your backyard is much more cost-effective.
When children are actively involved in the growing process, they become curious about the food they have helped create.
Enhances Sensory Development
Gardening is good for developing the senses. When you feel the soil and smell the flowers outdoors, you become more aware of your surroundings. For example, your kids can associate these sensory experiences with happy memories with the family.
Key Takeaways
Gardening is known to have plenty of benefits for each of your family members. So why not grab a shovel, gather your family, and start planting? The garden you grow may bloom with more than just flowers; it may nurture family connections, too.
- Learning is a possibility with gardening.
- Taking care of plants improves overall mental health.
- Get physically healthy with gardening.
- Your family can have conscious eating behavior.
- Gardening boosts sensory development.
Start gardening today and enjoy the benefits with your family!
My name is Andrea Thompson and I’m a home based freelance writer. I’m 23 years old, married to my best friend, and mother to a wonderfully independent and opinionated 3 year old girl and step-mother to a sweet seven year old boy. I live in a tiny, little town in Kentucky, where I spend my free time fishing with my kids.
Writing has always been my passion, which I followed through high school, and for a while in college. Life happened, and once I discovered we were pregnant, I switched directions; opting for the healthcare industry because of the stability.
Finally, years later, I was in a place where I could leave the day job that never truly made me happy, and pursue my dreams. I’ve built, and am still building, my writing career from scratch. But, I’m passionate and I’m good at what I do. And, in the end, I can prove to my daughter that she can do anything she wants with this life.
