The marriage garden: cultivating your relationship so it grows and flourishes

The book is organized into six lessons: 1. Commit: Make and honor promises. We start our gardens with great visions and bold enthusiasm, but if we are unwilling to deal with problems and differences, we will never enjoy a bountiful harvest. 2. Grow: Cultivate your strengths. If we don't nurture our personal strengths and abilities, we won't be well prepared to take on our gardening tasks. The most successful gardeners know they must invest time in reflection, learning and improvement. 3. Nurture: Do the work of loving. Marriage can grow from a handful of seeds to a garden filled with colorful, radiant life. We may need to increase the light of encouragement, the fertilizer of time spent together, and the water of kindness. 4. Understand: Cultivate compassion for your partner. At times we'll get sunburned, poked by thorns, and bitten by bugs. During difficult and painful times, we can be gardening partners who respond to each others pains rather than scold for not using sunscreen or being more careful. 5. Solve: Turn differences into blessings. We may have very different visions. If we choose to stay calm, listen attentively, understand our partner's view, and use creativity, it's possible to turn differences into strengths. 6. Serve: Give back to your community. Just as you might share your tomatoes and zucchini with neighbors, our marriages are strengthened by sharing our time and resources to make our whole world blossom.Wally Goddard PhD is Professor of Family Life for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service. He is co-author of the revised best-selling classic Between Parent and Child, and author of Soft-Spoken Parenting, published by an independent small press that had no distribution or marketing. Dr. Goddard is an award winning teacher, speaker to parents and professional audiences nationally and internationally. He has been the host of the TV series Guiding Children Successfully on national public television in thirteen states. James Marshall is Assistant Professor of Family Life for the University of Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, and a licensed marriage and family therapist. Both Wally and James are both part of the National Extension Marriage and Education Network (NERMEN), a federal government commission of scholars appointed to review, organize and summarize the knowledge base related to marriage and couple relationships in every state of the union. NERMEN is currently creating amarriage training curriculum under a federal contract with the Administrationon Children, Youth and Families, Children's Bureau. Both authors live near Little Rock, Arkansas.

• ISBN: 978-0-470-54761-8
• Editorial: John Wiley & Sons
• Encuadernacion: Rústica
• Páginas: 224
• Fecha Publicación: 07/05/2010
• Nº Volúmenes: 1
• Idioma: Inglés