6 Super Ways to Get Your Kids Off Their Phones and Into the Garden

Spending time outdoors benefits children in a whole host of ways.

Firstly, exercising out in the fresh air is good for their physical health. It improves their cardiovascular fitness, builds stronger bones and muscles, improves posture, and helps them maintain a healthy weight.

Secondly, outdoor exercise, particularly being close to nature, is good for their mental health. Research shows that it results in a happier, less anxious child, who enjoys better sleep and an improved attention span.

Being outdoors provides opportunities to learn new things too. Depending on the activity, this might involve biology, environmental science or food technology.

While children are resilient creatures, they are far more likely than adults to take failure to heart. They’re also much less patient. Therefore, it’s a good idea to introduce them to gardening by finding a plant that’s quick and easy for them to grow. Some initial success will then spur them on and help maintain their enthusiasm.

Growing fruit and vegetables is particularly rewarding as it shows kids where their food comes from and can help encourage a healthy diet. Salad leaves, cress, radishes and beans are all good starting points.

Of course, you needn’t begin with fruit and vegetable plants. If your child’s interest is stimulated more by smell or sight, rather than taste, you could help them grow plants that produce scented and/ or pretty flowers. Sweet peas, marigolds and nasturtium are all easy for children to grow. So are sunflowers, whose extraordinary height will really capture a child’s interest.

Get more ideas about which plants to grow here.

The natural aspects of a garden aren’t confined to plants. There are many other interesting things for kids to learn about, one of which is insects.

Nowadays, with so many gardens paved, decked or heavily manicured, we don’t seem to see quite so many insects close to home, so it’s important to make them feel welcome. One way to do this is by building a bug hotel.

This could be something as simple as a pile of leaves and twigs, but if you’ve got a bit of time and would like to help your children improve their practical skills, you could build something like this.

Teach your children about the importance of insects – how they pollinate, manage pests, and their essential role in maintaining the overall health of a garden.

One of the gentlest, most subtle ways you can introduce your children to the outdoors is to organise a picnic. They’re also a great way to spend some quality time with your family.

Having a picnic needn’t involve travelling to the seaside or a local beauty spot. Picnics in your garden can be equally rewarding, giving you the ideal opportunity to show your kids some of the other garden-based activities featured here.

Best of all, no financial outlay is required. Simply roll out a rug on your lawn, arrange your lunch on plates or in sandwich boxes, and tuck in.

However, if you’re really taken with the idea of having regular picnics in your garden, and want to go the whole hog, you could always buy a wooden picnic table.

Many of you will remember building outdoor dens, and playing at being cowboys and Indians, or soldiers, when you were growing up. It was always regarded as a bit of harmless fun, and a great way for kids to let off steam.

The added, but sometimes overlooked, benefit of this type of game is that it provides young children with an excellent opportunity to use their imaginations, because physical props are rarely required.

Of course, life moves on, and as most kids now own mobile devices and other advanced gadgets, it’s probably a bit fanciful to ask them to put these gadgets aside and just go out and ‘play’.

Instead, parents need to get creative themselves, by offering their children something tangible to get this creative play started. A wooden garden playhouse, like the one shown here, could be just the ticket.

Swings and slides can be just as much fun as playhouses. They’re incredibly beneficial for children too, as they encourage exercise, with all the physical and mental benefits that come with it.

And nowadays, your children needn’t venture out to the local park to enjoy this sort of activity. No, not when there’s garden playsets available, like this one!

Featuring a slide, sky-scooter, rope ladder AND swing, this kids’ playset offers enough variety to keep your little ones active and amused for hours upon end.

Designed and built to rigorous European safety standards, this swing and slide set is made from a sturdy combination of treated wood, steel and premium-grade plastic, so it’ll provide year after year of safe, healthy outdoor fun.

If someone is given responsibility for their own bit of land, they’re far more likely to take the time and effort to look after it. This doesn’t just apply to adults, but to kids too.

Whether it’s related to gardening, building or playing, if you allocate a part of your garden to your children, they’re going to positively want to spend time there. And for all the reasons already mentioned, this will benefit them greatly.

Initially, help them look after their garden space. Then, as their confidence grows, take more of a backseat and give them a freer rein in whatever they’ve got planned.

Personalising an area of the garden could involve almost anything – the only real limit is your child’s imagination. You might allow them to choose which plants to grow, paint a planter in a colour of their choice, or even do a bit of basic landscaping.

So, spending time in the garden is clearly beneficial to your children in a multitude of ways. The most challenging thing about it is getting them out there.

Hopefully, we’ve given you a few pointers about how to achieve this, but our list is far from exhaustive. Nobody knows your children better than you do, so we’re sure you’ll soon be brimming with your own great ideas.

Should you need any garden products, no matter how big or small, to help realise your plans, you’ll find them through our homepage here.