Mind, Body, Soul: School Gets Kids Gardening

Garden wellness is the name of the game at Winchester Public School in downtown Toronto, as students are planting radishes, spinach, parsley, carrots and mouse melons, too. In this large food garden, young people learn about everything from photosynthesis to nutrition to composting. As kindergarten student Sophie explains, ‘The worms poop and that’s how the dirt goes.’ However, the garden benefits the students’ bodies, as well as their minds.

According to Dr. Glenn Berall, chief of paediatrics at North York General Hospital, the wellbeing of many kids is at risk because don’t get all the fruit and vegetables they need. He notes, ‘I think a community garden at every school would be a wonderful idea. It develops the positive attitude for vegetables and the positive attitude for fruit potentially and helps the kids to understand where their food really comes from.’

Gerald Parsons, 17, is in his first year of horticulture at Bendale Business and Technical Institute, a high school in Toronto. He says that food tastes better when you know how to grow it, and this year he will be growing a vegetable rainbow of summer squash, hot peppers, tomatoes, purple onions, spicy mustard greens and kale. ‘I just like the way nature is,’ Parsons explains. ‘How it grows and what it does. How cool it is that it provides food for others to eat and live off of it. It’s pretty awesome’.

Co-ordinator Katie German comments that gardening doesn’t only serve as a complementary therapy, but also helps students see the big environmental picture. ‘They’re learning about food from seed to plate,’ says German. ‘All the way, the whole process through, how much work it takes to produce good healthy food. They’re really getting a sense of pleasure and joy in that good food and they’re also seeing a really clear connection between ecological health and the health of our food.’ She adds that students ‘get physical activity, physical exercise, they develop a positive relationship with food, with healthy food, and also a positive relationship with their own bodies because they are out here seeing what they’re bodies are capable of doing.’

Categories: Canada, nutrition, School Garden

Could Getting Out in the Garden Help Your Kid’s Development?

Several times a week, Annikki Egolf, a Child & Youth Care worker with the Cariboo Chilcotin Child Development Centre Association (CDC) in Canada, goes outside with different groups of children, planting vegetables and flowers in their own box in the community garden. Last week alone, children planted cabbage, lettuce, tomatoes, zucchini, marigolds, potatoes, onions and beans, but why?

 

Gardening is often used as a complementary wellness therapy, as it benefits child wellbeing in a number of ways. Firstly, gardening could help your children to learn the basics of where their food comes from and how to grow it, as well as how plants are associated with their clothing, food, shelter, and wellbeing. In today’s epidemic of indoor living, gardening projects provide your children with a rarity; carefree exploration of the natural world.

 

Aside from this, gardening helps your children to develop their academic and social skills, giving them increased nutrition awareness, environmental awareness, higher learning achievements, and increased life skills. In fact, research suggests that young people who take part in garden-based learning programs are more likely to eat fresh fruits and vegetables, and they become more enthusiastic about the fresh, nutritious vegetables they’ve grown themselves. There is scientific evidence to prove that children’s garden programmes increase your child’s life skills, as well as helping to enhance moral education, appreciation for nature and patience.

 

Therefore, a group of 10-15 kids at the Cariboo Chilcotin Child Development Centre will be checking on their garden almost every day throughout the summer and all of their hard work will pay off in the autumn when they will use their vegetables for a harvest dinner. The Memory Garden has been created due to a partnership between the Food Policy Council and leadership students from the high school, with the hopes of creating beautiful memories for people living in the area.

 

While the garden project is part of the Cariboo Chilcotin Child Development Centre Association’s work to provide assessment, education, and assistance to children who require extra support in areas of physical, socio-emotional, communicative and cognitive development, any child can benefit from getting out into the garden, so why not see if you can develop your kids’ green fingers?

Categories: Canada, child development, School Programme

Canadian School Teaches Parents about Child Stress

As part of Children’s Mental Health Week, a Canadian school board packed an auditorium with educators, parents, students and staff looking for some insight into identifying and dealing with children’s stress. Stressed Kids: The Good, The Bad And How To Avoid The Ugly was a night put on by the Peel District School Board’s social work services department, organised by parents and staff who were keen to increase awareness for student stress, as well as ways to improve child emotional wellness.

With the Associated Youth Services of Peel, staff from the board’s social work department explained what stress is, the signs of stress, the impact, tools for dealing with stress and where parents and students can find help. Jim Van Buskirk, the board’s chief social worker, noted that this is the fifth annual event organised by the social work department and held at the board’s Mississauga headquarters, where past discussions have centred on mental health issues such as anxiety, depression and suicide.

This years event opened with a sketch performed by students from Mississauga’s Cawthra Park, in which they acted the parts of a family experiencing mental pressures. The play demonstrated ways stress can manifest itself in adults and children, the impact it has on individuals and their relationships, and suggestions for coping. Associate Education Director Scott Moreash then told a crowd of more than 250, ‘We are here because we want to help our children.’

Gordon Floyd, Children’s Mental Health Ontario (CMHO) president and CEO, explained to the audience the three goals his organisation had when they started Children’s Mental Health Week in Ontario about seven years ago. The first goal was to raise awareness of how common it is for mental health issues to affect a family’s wellbeing. He noted, ‘Pretty much every family is affected in one way or another.’ Floyd’s second goal was to let parents and students know that support services are available in every community, and his third was to ensure everyone is aware that treatment works. He commented, ‘One reason so many people are afraid is the misunderstanding that mental illness is perhaps forever.’

Categories: Canada, child stress, Children’s Mental Health Week

A Smile a Day: Canada Launches Depression-Fighting Campaign

Through the Canadian Mental Health Association’s Be Well Winnipeg campaign, Kabilan Mohanarajan helps to educate people to take care of their own mental and emotional wellbeing, but also to build a stronger community that promotes wellness for all.

According to Mohanarajan, 23, who is studying to become a teacher at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, ‘The reality is that everyone has mental health. We can commit to being well together.’ As a result of this belief, Mohanarajan, who has an undergraduate degree in psychology, will be spending the next month volunteering as an intern in Winnipeg at the CMHA, helping spearhead the Be Well Winnipeg campaign. The campaign asks you to commit to a few actionable items every week throughout the month of May, such as spending 15 minutes outside every day, taking a friend out for a wellness activity or working to de-clutter a living space to reduce stress.

Mohanarajan beams, ‘So far, I’ve committed to saying good morning to the first person I see every day, to eating more healthy foods and to smiling at least three times a day. Habits definitely make the person, and maybe if you commit one month to smiling every day, or going outside every day, you will continue to do so, and build not only a better life for yourself, but build a better community.’ He adds, ‘I think it helps to discuss mental health, mental wellbeing and mental illness out in the open. Too often things are swept under the rug.’

Nicole Chammartin, executive director of the CMHA Winnipeg, says, ‘We are just so excited to bring this campaign to Winnipeggers, which recognizes the little commitments we can all take to make big improvements in our lives.’ Residents will be able to track their success online, and win prizes based on the commitment they have made. These include gift certificates for Spa treatments and Mountain Equipment, a Xerox printer and autographed Winnipeg Jets gear. Tessa Blaikie, a youth mental health promotion worker, comments, ‘Our real hope is that people will understand that the Canadian Mental Health Association is here for all Winnipeggers. We’re here to help all Winnipeggers live their lives to the fullest.’

A Smile a Day: Canada Launches Depression-Fighting Campaign

Categories: Canada, De-Clutter, Smile

Unusual Sex Practices Common In Canada

Two’s company but three’s a crowd? Apparently not so in Canada, as new statistics have shown that 22 percent of the country has had sex with two or more partners at the same time. That’s more than one in five suggesting that they’ve had a ‘threesome’. Interestingly, around 29 percent of the country’s citizens also said that they were open to the concept.

These interesting revelations came from a nationwide survey conducted by the Playtex and Environics Research Group. The results suggest that Canada is one of the most sexually experimental countries in the world. This almost goes against stereotypical thinking that might have placed Canadians as a fairly conservative people. Now it seems that they are more adventurous and uninhibited sexually.

There were a number of other results including the fact that eight percent of Canadians have had sex in a canoe! According to the survey, the average person in Canada has had 12 sexual partners in their lifetime, while 23 percent of men and 13 percent of women claimed they had 20 or more lovers. 17 percent said that they had only had sex with one person their whole life.

When it came to the frequency of having sex, 35 percent said that they indulged a few times per month, while 33 percent said a few times a week. Married Canadians were more likely to say the former, while dating Canadians were more likely to say the latter.

19 percent said that they had sex less than once a month and eight percent claimed they did it every day. Around half the country said they preferred sex in the evening with 13 percent claiming the morning was their favourite, and just five percent pining for sex in the afternoon. The rest of the population claimed that any time suited them.

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Unusual Sex Practices Common In Canada

Categories: Canada, sex life, sexual health