A Cooperative Project

 If you live in an area where you have space, you can start a garden of any kind, either vegetable or flowers. I would actually recommend planting a flower garden, because vegetables may take up to 80 or 85 days before your plants will yield those vegetables. Remember, however, that you should break the work involved in your garden into many simple steps.

You certainly do not want your preschool child with ADHD to become overwhelmed and lose interest. Very importantly, do not use yourself as a barometer as to when you feel that you have done enough work in the garden. Take a look at your child and see if he gives out clues that he has done enough for one day. Does he look tired? Is he walking around and not focusing?

I would also not recommend growing seeds with preschool children with ADHD because they really need more instant gratification than planting seeds will yield. You can break the planting of the garden into several components so that your child will see the benefits of planting it together. I would like to give you a little bit of advice here: Buy a few extra plants so that if your child does not take the plants out of their containers correctly and they are ruined, you have extra ones to plant. Here are some steps to planting a garden cooperatively.

     Decide on color scheme.

     Choose carefully and decide as to which plants will grow depending on the number of hours of sun that shines on the garden. Make a trip out to the patch of land several times a day where you are growing your plants. Why should you do so? In that way, both you and your child will learn information about how much sunlight that area of land receives per day as well as how much sun and how much shade your plant will receive. (Your child will depend on your horticultural expertise here, or you can always Google your question about the number of hours of sunlight that a certain plant requires!)

     Additionally, choose the size of the plot of land where your plant will grow depending on how much space you are allotting for your garden. You certainly do not want to grow sunflowers in a very small area because they need room to spread out vertically and horizontally! For example, New Guinea Impatiens need some sun and some shade, while the old-fashioned regular Impatiens need full shade. Vincas require full sun but can withstand drying out in hot weather.

     Go to the garden center and choose small plants together depending on your color choice and your size requirements. If you draw up a design format on paper (using symbols that your young child can understand), your child will quickly understand your restrictions. Ask the person who works at the garden center as to the type of soil that you will need, as well as any fertilizer and when to apply it. *Here is an important caveat! Buy plain soil with no included fertilizer so that your child will not be working with any soil with fertilizer in it, which could cause your child to experience an allergic reaction. Only buy fish fertilizer and/or fish/seaweed fertilizer for your plants. They are the absolute best fertilizers and are nontoxic for your child to use.

      Have your child cooperatively help you every step of the way, especially in terms of taking the plants out of the car and putting them in a safe place until you are ready to plant them.

     When you plant, explain to your child how to release the plants Then, show him how to release the plants from each temporary container, and help him to insert the plant into the ground. Tell him how far apart the pots will be planted. Show him how to put extra soil around each plant.

     Tell your child how to water, meaning to water until he sees the water drip down out of the bottom of the plants. If it is possible, avoid getting water on the flowers. (When water gets on the flowers, they will be stained a bit.)

     Finally, give your child praise as to how well he cooperated with you to plant the flowers.

     Each day, take your child to view the plants and talk about the changes that you both see. In fact, you might even want to graph the changes in a picture format so that your preschool child with ADHD can see the changes overtime.

If you live in the city and do not have room for so many plants, you can still execute this intervention. If you have room for a medium size to a large pot, go through the same steps as above, except for designing the garden, of course.