Children and Love Language
I love you! 我爱你！Je t’aime！ Ich liebe dich！ Saya cinta padamu！ Ti amo！Kimi o ai shiteru! Sa Lang Hae! Jag älskar dig! Mahal kita!
Even though the sounds and words are all different but the meaning is the same. From Sandi Patti’s “Love in Any Language” lyrics, we learn that Love in any language is coming straight from the heart, that pulls us all together never apart, and once we learn to speak it, all the world will hear.
The wish of the songwriter is that love in any language is fluently spoken in our home sweet home. However, it is not the case most of the time. Thousands of parents out there have difficulty communicate love to their children, thus many children are living with an empty love tanks Some parents have difficulty understanding the love language of their children as well as expressing love language that the children understand easily.
“A person’s a person, no matter how small.” ~ Dr. Seuss, Author
Young children need to feel loved at an early age. Primary love languages begin to take shape at an early age in children. Dr. Gary Chapman in his book “The 5 Love Languages of Children” applies his love languages concept to children. He urges the parents to learn ways to strengthen the bond between them and their children by speaking their language.
“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.” ~ Mother Teresa
It is important to understand each child’s love language. The child’s heart is like a little “love tank”. When he does not receive the love he needs he feel empty inside. Instead of being able to express that to you, he may misbehave, have a tantrum or whine or do things that make you went nuts! A child with a full “love tank” is a child who’s love language has been spoken to him.
Some tips on Children and Love Language
1) How do you know your children’s love language?
“Hugs can do great amounts of good, especially for children.” ~ Princess Diana, Princess of Wales
If your children are still young, you could use all five of the love language. By observing the children’s behaviour, you can learn their primary love language easily. Let’s do a simple test to find out the primary love language of your child.
When you return from work, what is the first thing your child do to greet you?
- Jump into your lap, hug and kiss you
– Touching and wants to be touched, “Physical touch” is the primary love language
- Want to show you something interesting
– Wants undivided attention and will not give up until he gets it, “Quality time” is the primary love language
- Make presents for you, wrap them nicely for you- shoed his desire to receive, primary love language is “Receiving Gifts”
- Try to help a younger sibling probably means that the primary language is “Acts of Service”
- Tell you how good you look and what a good job you did indicating “Words of Affirmation”
2) Importance of discovering the primary love language of your child
Behaviour is motivated by own emotional desires. A child does or says to get her emotional needs met. Every child has an emotional love tank to be filled. He or she develops into responsible adults when the emotional needs are met. If the needs are unfulfilled, he or she may express anger towards the parents who did not meet their needs and seeking love elsewhere. Sad to know from Dr Ross Campbell that almost all sexual misconduct in adolescents is rooted in an empty emotional love tank.
3) Teenagers and love language
Parents must find out and learn to communicate love in a language that he children could understand and feel it. Problems occurred when words of affirmation become words of condemnation. Therefore it is important to speak the primary love language of our children if we are to meet their emotional need for love.
When the children are young, parents tends to praise the children when they start to crawl, to walk or to talk. Even if the children did not do it right the first time, parents would tell them they have done a good job and urge them to try again.
However “Words of Affirmation” tends to change to “Words of Condemnation” as the child gets older. Parents tend to condemn for failures rather than commend for successes. We could examine ourselves by just listening to how we speak to our older children. Negative and critical words will leave a lift long damage to the lift of those whose primary love language is “Words of Affirmation”. They would probably remember the harsh words spoken to them and this contributed in their low self-esteem, making them feel unloved all their lives.
4) Speak the language.
To be an effective parent, we could observe our children and watch how they express love to others. This will help us in discovering their primary love language. Make a note of the things they often request from you and the things that they most appreciate. These are indicators of their primary love language. In order for our children to feel loved, we must learn to find out and speak our children’s love language.
“You have to love your children unselfishly. That is hard. But it is the only way.”
~ Barbara Bush, former U.S. first lady
Let’s speak the love language today!
