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23-Aug-2020 12:00 AM
1979
Last month I was invited to a conference which was held in the city my parents live in. I accepted the invite primarily because I could take my daughter with me and she could spend time with her grandparents and secondly, the theme of the conference was relevant to my interest.
My daughter loves the trips to my parent’s place where she enjoys working with a spade and sprinkler in the garden. My parents are very fond of gardening and they spend considerable time taking care of the plants and trees. It not only brings them closer to nature but also freshens the memories of their children growing up playing in this garden. The greenery of this place has always brought positivity to our home.
Last year when my daughter went to meet them, she insisted on learning how to grow flowers in a pot. She was fascinated by colorful butterflies sitting on the flowers and ran after to catch them. The doting grandparents brought new pots for her and helped her in planting different flowering plants. When the flowers bloomed they took the pictures and sent us. She was so delighted to see those images that for quite a few months she showed it to everyone who came home.
I feel very happy to see her bond with nature instinctively at the tender age of three. She has a natural liking for outdoors. She enjoys going to the zoo and knows the names of many wild animals and their sounds. She plays with the pets in our neighbor and feeds them. She loves watching birds in the sky. When I look at the kind and caring side of her personality I feel satisfied that we are bringing her up in the right way.
In vacations, we often take children in our family to our farmhouse and assign little tasks to them like digging out the potatoes and plucking the tomatoes and strawberries. The one who gets maximum no. of it gets rewarded. It instills the spirit of competition in them. In addition to playing in dirt and soil, when they see other vegetables and fruits grown there, they understand that the vegetables on their plate do not come directly from Mall’s grocery store.
Children love playing out in the soil and we must encourage them to be active. These days kids remain inside the house watching TV, playing video games, or on the computer. Having healthy kids is not just limited to what they are eating. It also includes how they respond to the outside world.
Gardening is a good way to keep children away from the TV or mobile phones. It also gives them a sense of accomplishment when they see their efforts bearing fruit. A simple thing like planting a seed and watching it grow on the windowsill can be a novel thing for kids.
We must tell our children that by growing a plant today they are making a big effort to save our planet.