I’m a big fan of Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell and there have been many times that knowing my husband’s love languages has helped give me perspective in my marriage. The great news is that we can use these tools in relationship with our kids, too! If you have a shelf in your house with family-related reads, I would encourage you to add “The Five Love Languages of Children” to your library.
Isn’t it easy to get consumed by the pragmatics of parenting such as… Are we setting appropriate expectations? Are they getting enough sleep? Do they need more friends
? The list goes on. While great questions, they lack an essential component of what it takes to truly connect with your child. Connection is the foundation we can use to discover the nuances of our child’s unique needs and desires. When our child feels a deep connection with us, he is much better able to communicate and cooperate. Let’s face it, it isn’t always easy to feel connected when what we want from our child is in opposition to what he seems to want or to be able to give us. Perhaps by strengthening the bond by using love languages, we could see improvements in other areas.
Every parent wants to express love to their child. It’s pretty simple to recognize the basic physical needs they have. We feed them when they are hungry. We help them with homework. We read to them. We provide them with clothing and shelter. We apply band-aids when they get hurt. However, the emotional needs our kids have are much more complex and not always easy to figure out. With the knowledge of knowing your child’s primary love language, it may feel like you’ve gamed the system!
The five primary love languages are physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, gifts and acts of service. The child who desires physical touch will likely be one who requests hugs, affection, hand holding or back rubs. This kiddo may also just like being snuggled up on the couch beside you. A child who receives love from you via words of affirmation thrives on verbal encouragement, specific praise and hearing the words “I love you”. The third language is quality time. This is a child who likely invites you into his world to play together or do activities together. A child who receives love through the language of gifts is a child who feels very special and cared for when she is given a token of someone’s love, regardless of monetary value. This could be a card, a letter, food, a present, etc. A child who receives love through acts of service may ask you to do certain things for him. He may request a certain meal at dinner or want you to help him pick out an outfit. He may enjoy doing homework if you offer to sit down with him to help.
A funny thing about love languages is that these categories describe how a human RECEIVES love from others. Typically, it is also the way a child expresses love to others. With this knowledge, we must not only learn our child’s type and find ways to use it so that they feel loved, we must also teach them that not everyone receives love in that exact way. It is common that adults in romantic relationships often have different love languages, so it's important that we learn the foreign languages and practice them so that we can be sure that our efforts translate to our partner as love. (It would actually be a fun family night activity to sit down and have everyone compare and contrast their languages and learn ways that each member can more effectively show love to their family members in ways that support the other love languages.)
In order to figure out what our child’s primary love language is, we may need to put on our detective hats. Your child may seem to have a couple primary love languages, so if we aren’t sure, we can present some options to them. For example, you may think that your child uses either quality time or gifts as their primary language. You may offer to them that you have an evening free and ask if he would rather watch a movie together or go shoe shopping. Depending on his choice, it could tell you what he would appreciate the most. With some intentional awareness, we can likely figure it out.
As early as the newborn age, children have a basic need for physical touch. Young children often interact in a very physical way with their caretakers, offering hugs and kisses. As kids get older, the desire or tolerance for public displays of physical affection between parents and kids changes. However, for a child who has physical touch as his primary love language, there will still be a desire to have those needs met, likely in a more private setting. These kids thrive on feeling close to those they love. Not surprisingly, these are children who are hurt in a very deep way if someone uses physical touch in a negative way or in anger. Tickle fights, group hugs, high fives, and hugging your child each morning are a few ideas to use with your child.
We live in a fast-paced, technical world these days and making sure we are speaking with our children is as important as ever. For children who receive love via words of affirmation, parents must be looking out for the good things they are doing to be able to call attention to them and verbalize specific praise. For younger kids, we can put encouraging notes in their backpacks or lunch boxes. We can put sticky “love notes” on their bathroom mirrors. We can send our older children text messages when they have a test encouraging them with affirmations. Your family can create an encouragement jar and people can add slips of paper to it with good things they notice about people in the family. Every so often you can open that at dinner and have people talk about what they wrote and why. These are a few ideas to get you started.
For a child who receives love through quality time, we need to carve out intentional time on our schedule that is dedicated to this. As a working mom, I know that this can be a struggle. We may have to get creative. Some ideas include “Sunday Funday” where the child gets to choose an activity to do together at a particular time that day. You could visit your child at school for lunch. You could have a sleepover night where you set up sleeping bags on the couch and watch a movie together. You could plan a family bike ride. Park picnics near a playground may be a fun way to engage with your younger child.
Children who have gifts as their primary love language enjoy the act of being given to. This is easily confused with a greedy child who feels entitled to have a lot of material things, but I assure you this is different. These kids see even the smallest token of thoughtfulness as a gift. It could be as simple as picking your child a flower. You could put a small gift in your child’s lunchbox. You could make up a song about your child and sing it to him. You could create a treasure hunt for your child, with clues and a treasure map. My kids love getting coupons for something they like (Good for 1 sleepover with a friend. Good for 20 minutes on the swing with mom. Good for 1 movie night.). This is a fun one for people who are creative.
Acts of service takes a bit more consideration because being a parent in itself is a service-oriented undertaking. We also don’t want to foster the belief that we will do whatever acts are requested of us. We need to consider that when we accept a request to be of service, we should do it with a willing, happy heart. Our action can either help to fill the child’s tank or to puncture it. Fixing a child’s bike tire will not feel loving to him if it is done by a parent who is huffing, complaining or criticizing the child for running over a nail. Some activities or actions to consider doing with your service-oriented child would be practicing her sport with her, helping with school work, or volunteering with your child in the community.
These languages may be expressed differently from your child as their ages and stages change. It’s important to pay attention to the current ways you can speak to your child’s love language. The authors have published a Love Languages book that is specific to teenagers, if that is helpful. I'd love to chat more. Contact me for Zoom coaching or visit us in Austin!
With love,
Dana
Comments