Talking your teenager into shifting his or her attention away from the splendor of electronics and their mobile devices to preparing and planting a home garden may turn out to be a mighty task. However, providing them a chance and some inspiration, it might just be the right thing for their well-being.
You do not necessarily require a big portion of land to set up a garden with the help of your teenager. Don’t assume that you even need your own backyard to do this. Your garden can be in the form of public gardens, patios or containers used for planting vegetables. Here’s the reason you need to begin a garden with your youth.
Gardening will also help out in being able to properly communicate with your teens, You can open up to them or they can open up to you. Learn more on how to deal with your teens properly by checking on parentingpod.com.
1. Caring for plants nurtures responsibility
No matter what kind of plants the garden has, be it vegetable or flowers, taking care of the garden assists the teen to cultivate the sense of responsibility. It also makes them gather self-esteem and sense of achievement as the sprouting vegetables grow to flowering and maturity.
Remember that all kind of plants need enough water and sunlight whether he prefers to plant peppers, banana, basil or butterfly bush. Your new teenage grower educates and gains experience on his own on what suits every plant, feeling the benefits of his work for a period of time.
Considering tree potted in rubber or plant of aloe inside the house can serve as a nice long-term activity that your youth can take care of. Plants that are usually planted in the house may stay for several years not needing so much attention or time, and they serve as best options for those families with little space outside.
2. Gardening improves mental health
To help individuals recover from certain mental health issues, gardening is usually used as therapy because gardens help in stress reduction, promotion of productivity and treatment of depression. Many programs for teenagers that require counseling involves the use of horticulture.
Staying away from social media and electronic gadgets too may help enhance teenagers declining attention times. Green areas filled with plants, grass, and trees have an effect of raising attention span for children suffering from ADHD, for instance.
Studies have established that staying for several minutes outside, surrounded by plants, trees and grass may help improve a teenager’s concentration and focusing power. Therefore, have your teenage girl or boy water garden plants, prune shrubs around the garden, carry out weeding and the result may be high concentration and remaining focused at work.
3. Being outside promotes exercise
The size of the garden doesn’t matter as it will provide healthy amounts of exercise, sunshine and fresh air for your teenager who most of the time doesn’t want to engage in healthy activities. Because of this, your teen could end up loving planting and taking care of various plants.
Activities involved in the garden such as deadheading of flowers, planting of seedlings, and sowing of seeds cannot be done without movement. However, many teenagers may be engaged in this work so much that they won’t realize that gardening is manual labor getting them to be active and healthy.
4. Family bonding through gardening
Gardening provides an excellent method during which you can have your teenagers connect to their brothers or sisters without constantly bickering at each other. Commit a small section of your yard, or purchase some plant pots in case of limited space within your home.
Permit everyone to select their best kind of plant that they believe can do well within your area, for example, one geranium, another to grow onions and yet another tomato. Make it like a joint effort to collect plants that do well in your weather condition and assist one another in planting. This is a great way for the family to connect and grow more intimate.
5. Develop better eating habits
Teenagers who plant their own vegetables are more likely to enjoy healthier eating even though their plants could just be some simple containers with single tomato plants. Having to eat what they have planted on their own will encourage them to put more effort into planting more of the kinds they like.
Domesticated raspberries and tomatoes directly from the berry or tomato plants could be wonderful extravagances for the youth who did all they could to see the berries or tomatoes grow.
Explain to your youth the importance of nutrition and its relation to their gardening and they will be well informed on what is the best choice of food for life. Therefore, the garden in the back of your yard can be the starting point for a teenager who is conscious of eating healthy to cultivate organic foods for the family.