How to Connect With Your Family Through Gardening

They may put up a fight if this is a new and sudden introduction, but including chores in your children’s daily routine has the potential to be “the best predictor of young adults’ success in their mid-20’s.” The garden has many lessons to offer all of us and is a brilliant mediator and connector.

This is easiest for everyone if you begin from a very early age rather then springing a sudden change on the household. Like planting a tree, the best time was years ago, the second best time is now. We’ll include some tips on how to work this into a routine from an early age and with older children below.

I am not immune to hard days as a parent, or disagreeable family members. In my years as a mom, I have realized that it is always easier outside and with a bigger focus then just us. These realizations have sent me diving into research by others much more experienced on the topic. This is what I have learned and experienced.

Benefits of children doing chores:

Marty Rossman author of ‘The Worry Solution’ states that “the best predictor of young adults’ success in their mid-20’s was that they participated in household tasks when they were three or four.” As parents and caregivers it is our role to equip our children with the skills needed for a life of independence. The benefits of children doing chores from an early age include:

1. Preventing Embarrassment and Shame
   Children develop in their own time and each have a season in which they will bloom, but if we do not give them the opportunity to try a skill in a safe and supported environment with you, then when the time comes to perform a task without you they may face a myriad of unpleasantries including embarrassment and shame from peers. Many adults carry with them the shame of childhood events and it is a difficult cycle to break. Much easier to prevent a cycle of shame instead.

2. Self-Esteem
   Hand in hand with preventing embarrassment, when children learn that they have worth and capabilities in many facets of life beyond athletics and academics they acquire self esteem. When they recognize their various skills and abilities to contribute to your home and society, their self-esteem swells. If they happen to fail in one aspect, they will know that they have many pillars that are still supporting them and that this one defeat does not define them.

3. Generating Problem Solvers
   The world needs more problem solvers, but the only way to generate them is by facing problems and flexing those critical thinking muscles. Starting at an early age with simple prompts such as “oh dear, I see that you knocked the plant over, how do you think we can fix this?” can later lead to “we have 37 million people that require vaccination, how can we achieve this in 6 months?” (can you tell this was written during a pandemic?). By giving children space to review a situation, and think creatively, and then implement a solution, they develop critical thinking skills that will benefit their household and society.

4. Teaches Consequences
   When you grow food from seed and then prepare a meal with the harvest, you appreciate the effort and flavour that much more. If your child has to clean up their own mess, or a household zone, they indirectly acknowledge the effort required and appreciate those that do that role. Often children grow up oblivious to their effects on those around them because they have never been on the opposite side of the table. If they must clean up, they are less likely to be unkept. If they have to work for their toys, they appreciate them that much more. In a disposable society, these lessons have the potential for creating greatness.

5. Generates Empathy
   More then ever our world can use more empathy. One book I thoroughly enjoyed that covers many ways of changing our self-driven society into a more empathetic world is “unselfie”. When children are required to problem solve, and they are aware of the consequences of their actions, they are naturally more empathic towards others facing similar situations.

Can childhood chores change the world? They can change your household and that’s a start! So how do we apply this at various ages?

How to apply garden chores at different developmental stages:

Pre-school

If you have survived the parenting hurdles of a two and three year old, for starters, congratulations! If this is still unchartered, looming territory this is what you have to look forward to.

Two and three year-old’s are in a constant battle with themselves and their environment for control and independence against connection and neediness. If you are able to reflect on the tantrums that occur you will find that they often stem from the child attempting to exert control or attempt something, which may not go as they planned or they are met with a parental correction. They then face frustration which they do not yet have the ability to regulate and a meltdown ensues.

One of the easiest ways to avoid tantrums from a child is to create them in a parent. Pop on your patience hat and stick with me:

Let children help. Do not do all the things for them.

Assist them in an age appropriate way and let them spill things, drop things and mess up. Give them simple and clear choices. If the task is “putting on footwear to go outside” instead of grabbing shoes and placing them on your child’s foot, give them two (appropriate for the conditions) options. The choice is not, to wear shoes or not, but rather they can wear one of each, the green ones or the cat ones.

As a parent, applying this practice to household chores is beyond frustrating. We already have very limited time and often like to fly through the mundane tasks such as laundry or meal prep. To slow down and allow a toddler to assist means a simple task will take 𝚢̶𝚎̶𝚊̶𝚛̶𝚜̶ drastically longer to complete.

Examples of garden chores that preschoolers can assist with:

• observing the weather

• selecting appropriate clothing for the weather

• watering plants

• digging holes

• adding soil to pots

• pushing soil back around a seedling or plant

• sowing seeds

• pulling weeds

• picking up sticks or fallen fruit

• harvesting (and snacking on) food

• picking flowers

• collecting seeds

• feeding birds

• observing pollinators and birds

Early Grade School

By this age your kids have a pretty clear personality and strong likes, dislikes. To make this less of a battle, play to their strengths, assigning tasks that will be easy wins and then gradually work in activities that will challenge them to develop new skills. For example, if they love to use their strength and are movers and shakers, task them with hauling a hose, carrying in the garden bounty or time them to see how fast they can dig a hole. If they are observers or planners, have them assist with scheduling seed starting, where plants will go, and what colours they’d like to have in the garden.

Often this age brings a lot of overwhelm and an even greater need to connect to you, due to the addition of many new members in their social circles. Reminding yourself that this is not about completing a task but rather connecting, will relieve the pressure and let you turn this into play at a pace that suits everyone involved.

Examples of garden chores that early grade schoolers can assist with:

• observing what materials cause the snow to melt first

• observing where water pools

• charting daily and nightly temperatures

• charting rainfall

• picking a tool to use for a task

• counting back weeks on a calendar and reading seed packets together

• selecting seeds or plants to purchase

• sowing seeds with spacing

• creating flower arrangements

• pruning tomato suckers

• pinching spent blooms

• picking pests off crops

• observing which plants draw in which pests or pollinators

• creating a dish from their garden harvest

• counting and packaging collected seed

Preteens

By this phase kids are used to facing more complex projects in school and have begun to perform research tasks. Gardening as a generality is one big experiment with many variables. Now is the age where kids can begin conducting their own garden experiments and taking responsibility.

If gardening is a new concept, and your gang is less then enthused with the idea, you may need to ease into the tasks with some enticing concepts. If your preteen is only interested in lounging about, involve them in designing the perfect chill-out space and then bringing it to life. The final result is they get to lounge within it. This may look like hanging a hammock, or building a clubhouse, fort type structure. If they are crazy about beauty and fashion, create a skincare focused garden that they can make salves or packets to scent their closet with. Work alongside them and ask for their opinions and ideas before presenting your own. Allow them to guide your time together and they will be more receptive to the tasks.

Examples of garden chores that preteens can assist with:

• plotting out on paper (or computer) your garden’s microclimates

• edging garden beds with spade or garden scissors

• sifting compost and preparing garden beds

• assist with building garden structures (wood/stone)

• clean garden furniture

• pruning shrubs

• setting up grow lights

• scheduling seed starting

• researching a plants requirements

• create garden layout

• fertilizing

• selecting companion plants to support garden

• reading soil bag labels and selecting soil/mulch

• carry plants in and out for hardening off

• create annual planter arrangements

• assist with canning/preserving

• assist with hydrosols/salves creations

• rake leaves

• clean up garden beds

Teens and Young Adults

At this point they are capable of nearly everything you are and maybe more, but may not be overly enthusiastic about participating. This is often the age where parents have ‘lost’ their children to the rest of society.

The teen years are a great age to allow them full independence. If they have been an active participant throughout the younger years then they will have built up the skills required to observe, plan and execute in the garden. Now we allow them access to more powerful tools and unsupervised work. Show them how their skills could be monetized outside of the home and encourage them to lean into the community that they want to be a part of through sharing knowledge or acts of service.

This age is often very passionate and opinionated. They may want to retreat, they may want to have their voices heard, but they all need a safe place to retreat back to when the world is too much. A quiet, private evening in the garden can be just what they need when the rest of their world is falling apart. There are many benefits to moving our bodies and being in nature and touching or connected to earth, but a key one is regulation and mood boosting.

The tasks previously mentioned can all be applied to this age but additional examples of garden tasks that teens and young adults can assist with are:

• cutting the grass

• edging lawns and garden beds with powered trimmers

• shaping shrubs and hedges

• pruning fruit trees

• designing garden structures (patios/decks)

• using power tools

• sharpen/maintain tools

• propagating plants from cuttings

• hand pollination of flowers

The soft skills acquired in a garden will guide your household. Family members will benefit in other areas of life such as school, work, community and social skills. As a family unit, the bond that you will be creating is irreplaceable. It may have a few hurdles to overcome as this settles into a normal practice but the benefits make it worthwhile. Memories will be formed and filed away and you will learn each others strengths, weaknesses, interests and struggles as you work sided by side in the garden.