Bringing up a child in a Metropolitan Tier I city, one thing that I was always worried about was whether he would ever connect with nature. In a city, wherein you can only see high rise buildings as far as your eyes can reach, an open garden or a landscape is something that is rare. Our children these days lack immunity, the reason, they don’t play enough in the good soil and mud. As parents, we have today become overprotective about our children and many a time restrain them from indulging in simple activities of happiness.
My Son is 3.7 months old. One thing that I felt that he was missing out in the concrete jungle was to enjoy the pleasures of gardening. For vacations, we have come down to my maternal house, which is in the suburbs of Mumbai. My parents have a small garden flat, where we grow a couple of vegetables and fruits. Though at this small age he is not able to contribute anything major, his daily job is to take around the garden and collect the vegetables and flowers for the day.
I have got him a small bucket, wherein he collects all the vegetables and then lays down in a banana leaf and pretends to be a vegetable vendor. This goes on for about an hour daily and is His a complete timepass for everyone. His other job is to take care of the fishes. Every day it is his duty to feed the fishes in the pond. Sometimes he feeds them extra and has also given them his food to eat.
There are many benefits of children being introduced to gardening. One of them being, it immensely improves their health, with pure oxygen intake and also helps in sensitizing them towards the environment. When children themselves do the hard work required to grow their own food, they will learn to appreciate their food more. On the Internet, you may be able to see fancy videos about farming or also play virtual farming games but nothing beats the real farming and gardening.
In today’s digital world, it is high time that we introduce our children to real activities than the virtual activities at the earliest stage.