A few weeks ago when I was refreshing myself on the 5 Love Languages for a previous post on Connecting with Your Spouse Through 5 Love Languages. This book takes the same concepts as the original love language book and gives specific examples on how to bring them into parenting. You can take these ideas and learn how to show your love to your child in the best way they can receive it.
What Are the 5 Love Languages?
As a refresher, love languages is a concept created by Gary Chapman for the way that you feel love. He narrowed them down to 5 main different love languages:
- Words of Affirmation
- Quality Time
- Receiving Gifts
- Acts of Service
- Physical Touch
How Do You Know Your Child’s Love Language?
This is the tricky part. How do you figure out your child’s love language? Throughout the book, they offer several ideas on ways to find out your child’s love language, assuming they aren’t old enough to take the simple quiz.
How Does Your Child Show Love to You and Others?
Observe how your child expresses love to you and others in their lives. For example, my daughter loves to spend time with me, doing whatever it is I am doing. If I’m doing dishes, she wants to be next to me doing dishes. If I’m watching Gilmore Girls, she’ll watch with me. Overall, she just loves being by me, so that’s one indication that her love language might be quality time.
However, it could be that your child complements you often (words of affirmation), showers you with hugs and kisses (physical touch), or likes to give gifts.
Typically, how your child expresses love, would be the way they also best receive it.
What Does Your Child Asks for Often or Complain About?
Another way to figure out your child’s love language would be to listen to what they ask for most often or what they complain about.
An example from my own life would be that my daughter is constantly asking us to play with her. She can’t seem to get enough of it. Even if we’ve spent an hour playing together, she still seems to want more. Another sign that her primary love language is probably quality time.
Another example from my daughter is that she’ll often complain “I can’t do it” about something simple like getting her own pants on. I will admit that sometimes this is incredibly frustrating because she is very capable of getting her own pants on. But when I look beneath the surface, I realize she’s really asking for an act of service, another love language.
Some kids might ask for feedback on something they’ve colored, a story they wrote, or their performance in a sporting event. Those kids are likely seeking words of affirmation as a love language.
If you start getting curious about some of your child’s comments and complaints, you might find that below the surface there lies their wanting to feel love in some way.
Give Your Child a Choice Between Two Love Language Options
Another way to determine your child’s love language is to give them the option between two of them in the course of normal life.
An example of giving a child a choice would be to say “I have some free time on Thursday night, would you like me to help you fold your laundry or would you like to go to the park?”
A child who has the love language of acts of service might pick folding laundry over going to the park (quality time).
15 Week Experiment
The 15 week experiment is probably the most time-consuming way to determine your child’s love language. But, it is probably one of the more accurate ways to do so.
In this method, you pick a love language to start with and then focus on using it regularly for 2 weeks straight. During those two weeks, observe how your child acts.
If they start behaving more positively or their mood is uplifted more during those two weeks, its likely that is their love language.
After the two weeks is up, you take a week off and then switch to the next love language for two weeks. You continue that cycle until you’ve finished up all of the love languages.
By the end of the 15 weeks, you should have a good idea of which love language had the most positive impact on your child, so you can focus on using that love language more regularly.
Similarly, if you start getting complaints, it might mean that love language isn’t for them. An example would be that if they start saying “I don’t want to snuggle” that might mean that physical touch isn’t their love language.
Other Love Language Tips
Kids need exposure to all of the love languages to grow up happy and healthy. Even though they will have a primary love language, as children are learning and developing, you still need to show them love from all of the categories.
The idea of observing your child for their love language by seeing how they love others and what they complain about can be applied to all relationships in your life. You can use it to notice how your spouse shows you love. By being curious in this way, you might be surprised at the ways your spouse is showing you love that you might not have picked up on before.
Shower Your Children With Love
When you finally know which love language your child speaks, you will be able to shower them with love in this way. In the book, they go through so many wonderful examples of how to do this, so I’d definitely recommend picking it up.
They show examples of children who had been struggling in some way, but once their parents started using their love language on a regular basis, they started showing progress with whatever had been holding them back.
The examples they show throughout the book give you warm fuzzies and definitely make your heart smile.
The 5 Love Languages of Children can be found here.
