Children's Mental Health Week.

This week is Children's Mental Health Week, and the theme is Growing Together. There are many ways to help young people find mindfulness at home through gardening that can be good for their mental wellbeing. Once you know how to look after a plant, it is sometimes easier to understand how to look after ourselves and why. So let's all put our hands in the soil and feel the earth's energy!

Explore your imagination! Whilst story-making in the garden may not technically be gardening, it will associate the outdoors with happy, creative time. Make fairy gardens, talk to the fairies, create a story, or imagine dragons or dinosaurs taking over your outdoor space or park!  

Allowing space for children to explore and empty their minds creatively is hugely important for mindfulness. Using the colours in the garden to talk openly about confusing or upsetting feelings practically can help a child engage .

Allows them to have a great sense of control and ownership in your outside space by giving them their own place to grow. They can do anything they wish in this space, whether that's filling it with vegetables, flowers or building a bug hotel or mud pie kitchen.

Sensory play is fun and incredibly calming. Pick up wiggly worms, caterpillars and ladybirds and look at them through a magnifying glass. Having a direct connection to the soil, grass, plants and wildlife and feeling different textures and smells of the plants can be full of sensory benefits.

The colours, numbers, and names of different wildlife in the garden are peaceful places to teach and learn new things and nurture the world around you. It can build new unique skills and boost confidence, making us happier and calmer.