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Show Growing A Garden Helps Families Grow Closer Together ;' Consider the demands of gardening with J children. You must have ample patience and energy, answer countless questions and be I able to handle disappointment, disaster and ' desertion calmly. 'Grow vegetables and strengthen Brent-child relationships at the ametime? Yes, it's possible say prists at Utah State Universi-But Universi-But they remind parents that trtain conditions must be met. YOU MUST want to make both (ie garden and the relationship rilh the child grow. Both parent lid child must become interested i gardening. Your chances of success dimin-shif dimin-shif you have to coerce, threaten, r punish children to get them to articipate in the garden project. It Mainly helps if a good parent-jiild parent-jiild relationship already exists. CONSIDER THE demands, oil, the gardener, must have pati-nce pati-nce and an ample supply of time md energy. You must exert the (ill to answer countless questions md be able to handle disappoint-nent, disappoint-nent, disaster and desertion almly. : It works best if parent and child (an together. Select the site then Ian for preparing the soil, select-ig select-ig seeds, planting, caretaking, arvesting and storing. Discuss the kills needed for each. THESE PLANS will help culti-ale culti-ale communication skills be-een be-een the adult and child. The Mid learns that there is a sy stema- way of doing things. It takes into ccount the soil, climate, seed, luipment, energy and the human ills needed. Realize that disappointments lid even disasters in gardening lith children are teachable mo-Ms. mo-Ms. The child may hoe up a row young vegetable plants with the teds, or kill plants with too much infer. These occasions provide pportunities for calm discussions iat can teach children not only abut ab-ut gardening, but about life on a roader scale. REALIZE THAT communica-wi communica-wi coupled with planning is one of K most important lessons to be wed by both parent and child. If d is reluctant to join you in le garden, consider whether you rescheduled the gardening time ' " m Mvance and communicated that schedule to your child. Don't expect enthusiastic cooperation if the first time the child knows about your weeding schedule is when you interrupt a game or a favorite television tele-vision program. For a successful experience, strive to share with your child learning about work, effort, planning, plan-ning, responsibility and about reaping the fruits of one's labor. You both will grow closer through sharing in the experience. THE UNIVERSITY specialists also point out that a garden project provides opportunity to observe and discuss how plants and people grow and develop similarly. Seeing tiny objects planted, then sprout, grow, blossom and bear mature fruit can result in powerful learning as parents explain these parallels in understandable ways to their children. chil-dren. Similarities between the life cycles cy-cles of vegetables and of people provide many teaching moments. Explain that just as plants need different dif-ferent care at different stages of their life cycle, so do people. These similarities observed open doors for talking to children about , the nurturing and maturing processes and even about death. AS YOU embark on your parent-child parent-child garden project, realize that just as plants are not all the same, neither are parents or children. Also, while it takes generally only one season to grow and harvest a garden, remember that it requires many seasons to expohe many facets of human relationships. Take this time to build and strengthen streng-then the good feelings, the mutual trust and respect that can and ought to exist between parent and child. Of course there are no guarantees guaran-tees at the time of planting seeds that you'll harvest the desired product. pro-duct. Remember also that the successful suc-cessful strengthening of parent-child parent-child bonds is not guaranteed. Many things can and will occur throughout the season to affec tthe outcome, the specialists note. Just keep in mind that good gardeners learn from their mistakes. They keep on trying and growing. |