A playhouse and its garden can be tended by the entire family, teaching skills that spark lifelong interests.

Isaiah lives with his grandmother in an apartment next to the stables where 50 horses are boarded year around. He's an inner-city kid like so many others with a broken family and few African-American role models outside sports figures. Happy and gregarious, he made friends with a senior couple who keep their two Arabian horses at the stables. One Arabian is an ancient 32-year-old sorrel named Bud.

It started when Pam had surgery for breast cancer and couldn't exercise Bud, so Bill her husband put Isaiah on the old gelding's back. Isaiah would ride Bud around the stable and down the trails, the boy's feet not reaching the stirrups, the old Arabian moving slowly and sure for the new rider. Isaiah bloomed and proved to be a quite natural horseman.

Of course, the wise older couple required Isaiah to help with the horse. He would carry buckets of senior feed to Bud's stall and clean out the manure. Before he could ride each day, Isaiah would pick mud from Bud's hoofs and brush the dirt from his thin coat. Isaiah learned that old horses need medicine just like old people do. And most of all, you treat them gently.

Today, Isaiah is a fixture around the stables. This boy with little direction and few interests outside video games and ball sports discovered an entirely new world that keeps him safe, secure and out of trouble. There is no way to know how it will affect his future, but he might become a veterinarian or an animal health tech, or maybe even a horse trainer.

Although Bill and Pam aren't his grandparents, they have taken on a similar role that is truly changing a boy's life. They've proved to me just how important mentoring can be, but it is far greater if grandparents take on the role of teachers. Too often, it's shopping or eating out or other entertaining activities that are fun, but these are not particularly useful to a child in the long term. Seniors have far more wisdom to confer upon young minds. It is doing productive activities with a child that opens the doors to their future interests. Our interests become theirs by virtue of sharing them.

How many grandparents have a lifetime of knowledge about plants and trees, bugs, worms, earth and the miracle of growth? How many were raised on farms that are now so foreign to modern kids? We tend to see the fruit of this knowledge as a beautiful finished garden that should inspire a kid. But it doesn't because children are too physically active.

When we spend time with kids doing any aspect of gardening, we are asking them to do what Isaiah does to earn his rides. The kids learn that beautiful gardens are not made in a day or even a month. These are long-term relationships between human beings, plants and the elements of nature that is truly miraculous.

Today's parents just don't have time to garden, but grandparents do. Working parents have few hours to do one-on-one quiet time activities with a child, but grandparents do. And young families don't often have a nicely prepared place for gardening, but grandparents do. And when grandparents don't step in to teach, guide and inspire, video games and popular culture take over. It's easy to see why childhood obesity is such a problem.

Even if you would prefer to hire a gardener to do the work, consider how many tasks could be done with a young apprentice. Create something appealing for the end reward that drives a child to earn his or her rides. Perhaps a visit to the reptile house at the zoo after coming upon a frog or lizard in the garden. Or maybe a walk along a riverbank to discover how garden flowers originally were brought in from the wild. So when the virtual world of high-tech comes to claim your grandchildren, know it is up to you to keep their feet firmly grounded in Mother Earth.

— Maureen Gilmer is a horticulturist and host of "Weekend Gardening" on DIY Network. Contact her at her Web site http://www.moplants.com or visit http://www.diynetwork.com