Do you ever wish your kids could understand just how much you love them? Have you ever wondered why the things that make you feel loved may not work in the same way for your child? As parents, even though our children sometimes drive us crazy, we love them unconditionally; but how could we express love in a way that they really understand.
We are all different and have a different way of expressing and receiving love that helps us to feel safe, appreciated, loved, and secure. We call these “LOVE LANGUAGES.”
Love Languages are specific ways of showing and expressing love that helps to make you feel good and fills up your cups of love, happiness, and joy.
There are 5 different types of love language. These are
Here is a breakdown of each love language and a few ways that you can connect better with your child using their love language.
Words of Affirmation
These are the words that we use to make someone feel good. For example, you could complement someone on how well they did something. For a child that has this love language it is important to make the child feel loved by the encouraging words that you use. Some examples include.
“I really like the way you used the pens to create that awesome truck, you are so clever”.
“I love that you were so helpful and kind to your friends today”.
“Thank you so much for doing………… I really appreciate your help; you did a good job”
Acts of Service
This basically means that – acts of service. The way to make children feel loved is through being helpful and lending a hand. Children will feel particularly loved when you do something that helps them out. When a child’s primary love language is Act of Service, they just love it when others do nice things for them, they love to see when you get involved in activities with them, or preparing their favourite meal or remembering that they really love to wear a certain colour.
Receiving Gifts
This is not necessarily in the materialistic way. It can be specific and special things whether it be tangible or intangible. When a child has receiving gifts as their primary love language it is important to remember that buying large expensive gifts for them is not what this means. It will likely be that simple things that make them feel love, things like a handmade card or craft. These children will also cherish things that you give them from your own childhood like a special toy. For adults this could look like finding a special or interesting shell at the beach, particularly if the person loves to visit the beach. With this love language remember that it is about the uniqueness of the gift not the expense.
Quality Time
This one is a simple one to understand but today a difficult one to master, with so much going one, busy schedules, most of the time both parents working, and technology taking up a lot of our free time. It is important to understand that the people with quality time as their primary love language need your 100% attention, this quality time needs to be intentional and for you not to be distracted. This means focusing your attention on your child. The gift of being present and telling a child that they are important and that you like to spend time with them is priceless. They will feel so much love from anyone that can give them this time and space to connect with them. It is a good idea to ensure that when making quality time for your child that you know that there will be no distractions from phones, televisions, or anything else.
Physical Touch
This love language requires something deeper than giving praise, buying gifts or spending time with them. Without hugs, kisses, pats on the back, fist bumps, and other physical expressions of love, their love tanks will not be filled. For children that have physical touch as their primary love language you will need to be prepared to give out lots of hugs, high fives, and fist bumps to keep them feeling loved. This one becomes a tricky one of you don’t enjoy being touched, it requires a bit of self-sacrifice to express love to someone that just loves to be touched.
After reading through you may be able to work out your child’s love language or you may be feeling a little confuse as to which one your child is. Fortunately, the writers of The 5 Love Languages have devised a questionnaire that calculates and gives you your love language. Take the quiz here, to take the quiz and discover your love language, your children’s love language, and even your spouse’s love language.
How great is it to know your love language, your children’s, and your spouses? As they say, “knowledge is power” and in this case the knowledge of how to love someone in a way they understand is so powerful. With this knowledge you will be able to create long-lasting relationships with deep meaning and purpose.
I trust you now have the knowledge and understanding that loving others according to their love language is both beneficial to you and to them as it provides you with the ability to express how much you love them in a way that they understand and can receive.
For more information around the 5 Love Languages be sure to check out their website, where you can read all about each different love language – and order the books.
