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Gallery: (24 images)
Hoai-Tran Bui, special to wtop.com
WASHINGTON – For adults, gardening can be one of the most rewarding activities
of
summer. However,
getting kids to enjoy the same activity may present challenges for some parents
and caregivers.
With rising levels of
childhood
obesity, and more youth engaging in increased screen time, sedentary
lifestyles in children and adolescents
is concerning. But gardening may offer the perfect middle ground
between a fun,
outdoor activity and a pastime
that offers exercise and promotes healthy habits.
“We see gardening as being a holistic activity for youth,” says Julie Parker-
Dickerson, the director of youth
education programs at the National Gardening
Association. “You
can garden in a very small space, you can
do it in an urban space, you can do it in containers.”
Gardening with Kids, a subset of
the National Gardening
Association, emphasizes the role of gardening in
the formative years of children. The organization uses gardening to teach students
about science and nature, and it strengthens their connection with nature, in
general.
“Anyone around kids can see the difference it makes for them to have time outside
in fresh air,” says Sarah
Pounders, education specialist at the NGA. “It is relaxing, provides exercise
(and) stimulates their senses
and minds without being over-stimulating.”
Melinda Kelley, program manager at We Can!
® from the
National Heart, Lung and Blood
Institute at the National Institutes of Health, agrees that introducing gardening,
and the healthy foods that
result from gardening, gives youth a better chance of become healthy eaters later
in life. We Can! stands for
Ways to Enhance Children’s Activity and Nutrition. It’s a childhood obesity
prevention program that focuses
on improving healthy eating choices, increasing physical activity and decreasing
screen time, which includes
time spent on computers, games and television.
“It’s just a great way to bring people together,” Kelley says about gardening with
children. “When you take kids
to a farm, or take kids to a
garden or take them even to your backyard, you’re getting them away from the TV
and getting them up off
the couch and getting them to do something active.”
For parents who want to find a unique way to spend time with their kids, and for
those who just want to get
their kids outside this summer, try these tips for gardening with kids.
Don’t assume kids need “kid-friendly” gardening.
WTOP’s Garden Editor Mike McGrath says the smartest thing adults can do is
introduce children to
“real gardening.” He says trends and gimmicks — such as upside down tomato
planters or gardening in
straw bales — may seem fun and creative, but they are just trends that may not
even be safe to have around
small children.
“I think it’s degrading to pretend that children don’t have intelligence, that
they can’t be part of the real
world, that they can’t learn to do something correctly,” McGrath says. “If you
make them some sort of
bizarre playground of plants that has nothing to do with real gardening, you may
amuse them for about 20
minutes, then they’re going to get bored and they won’t have learned anything
about real gardening.”
Instead, Pounders recommends starting kids off
with raised beds or
container gardens, since they are much easier to plant and maintain.
Ask your kids what they want to do or plant.
Take your kids to the store and let them help pick out the seeds. Then, engage
them in planting the
seeds and watering the plants. Pounders says to choose seedlings for immediate
gratification and seeds for
delayed gratification.
Kelley says kids are more likely to be engaged in gardening if you frame it
around some of their
interests.
“Maybe some foods they’d like to try, (and) maybe just some plants they would like
to see what they’d look
like when they grow,” Kelley suggests.
Encourage them to eat the food they grow.
McGrath recommends growing small fruits and vegetables for children to munch
on, such as
raspberries, sugar snap peas or carrots.
“It’s really that first spring when the first peas come in, and the first little
fruits come in, that’s when you
say, ‘Hey do you want something really sweet, do you want to taste something
really delicious?’ And it’s not
in the fridge, it’s not in a box, it’s not in a store, it’s growing in our
backyard,” McGrath says. “And you take
them out, and once they have their first bite, they’re hooked. And there’s a kid
that suddenly, is always
going to have at least an acceptance of fresh food and an understanding of fresh
food.”
Pounders and Kelley agree that growing your own vegetables is the perfect way to
introduce children to
healthy, varied foods.
“The more you expose kids to healthy foods, I think you’re increasing the
likelihood that they’re going to be
receptive to those foods later,” Kelley says. “Just introducing foods to kids
numerous times can help them
overcome the picky eater issue that a lot of parents deal with.”
“Gardening is an activity that parents and kids can share while outdoors,”
Pounders says. “It teaches them a
lifelong skill — it can be a hobby or more fundamentally, it gives them the
knowledge to be able to obtain
their own food.”
Don’t expect to get a lot accomplished.
Children are naturally prone to distraction. Rather than tasking them with
pulling weeds or carting rocks, encourage them to do something creative.
“Let them enjoy what they are doing,” Pounders says. “They may get as much joy
just digging in the soil as
actually planting something.”
And while gardening is a slow process that many impatient children will find
frustrating, McGrath insists that
it is all worth it.
“There’s no plant you put in the ground that you get to eat the next day,” McGrath
says. “But there’s no kid
on the planet that doesn’t like fresh raspberries and blueberries and
strawberries. And to pick them from
your own yard, all of a sudden their parents are much more capable beings, they’re
much more important,
they’re much more interesting than any parent that takes them to the Whole Foods,
or takes them to the CSA
to pick up or takes them to the farmers market on Saturday or Sunday.”
Make it a family outing.
If you don’t have room in your home for a garden, try going to a community
garden. Churches, schools
and neighborhoods often have gardens on their grounds that are open to the public.
“A lot of communities have a little community gardens that you can sign up for and
have a little garden plot,
and that’s a really great way for some people to have access to a spot to garden,”
Kelley says.
Another option is to go out to a farm or an orchard to pick vegetables or fruits.
There are plenty of orchards in Virginia and Maryland that
let
visitors pick
strawberries in the summer, or apples and pumpkins in the fall.
“Ask the kids what they would like to pick, find out if this is a good time to
look and see what’s available in
your community in terms of gardens and farms to visit,” Kelley says.
Follow @WTOP and @WTOPliving on Twitter.
© 2013 WTOP. All Rights Reserved.
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