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CHILDREN AND LOVE LANGUAGES
Does the concept of love languages apply to children? I am often asked that question by those attending my marriage seminars. My unqualified answer is yes. When children are little, you don’t know their primary love language. Therefore, pour on all five and you are bound to hit it; but if you observe their behavior, you can learn their primary love language rather early. Bobby is six years old. When his father comes home from work, Bobby jumps into his lap, reaches up, and messes up his father’s hair. What is Bobby saying to his father? “I want to be touched.” He is touching his father because he wants to be touched. Bobby’s primary love language is likely “Physical Touch.” Patrick lives next door to Bobby. He is five and a half, and he and Bobby are playmates. Patrick’s father, however, faces a different scenario when he comes home from work. Patrick says excitedly, “Come here, Daddy. I want to show you something. Come here.” His father says, “Just a minute, Patrick, I want to look at the paper.” Patrick leaves for a moment but is back in fifteen seconds, saying, “Daddy, come to my room. I want to show you now, Daddy. I want to show you now.” His father replies, “Just a minute, son. Let me finish reading.” Patrick’s mother calls him, and he dashes off. His mother tells him that his father is tired and please let him read the paper for a few minutes. Patrick says, “But, Mommy, I want to show him what I made.” “I know,” says his mother, “but let Dad read for a few minutes.” Sixty seconds later, Patrick is back to his father and instead of saying anything, he jumps into his father’s paper, laughing. His father says, “What are you doing, Patrick?” Patrick says, “I want you to come to my room, Daddy. I want to show you what I made.” What is Patrick requesting? “Quality Time.” He wants his father’s undivided attention, and he won’t stop until he gets it, even if he must create a scene.
All of that is on the subconscious level for the child. That is, the child is not consciously thinking, “If I give a gift, my parents will give me a gift; if I touch, I will be touched,” but her behavior is motivated by her own emotional desires. Perhaps she has learned by experience that when she does or says certain things, she typically receives certain responses from her parents. Thus, she does or says that which results in getting her own emotional needs met. If all goes well and their emotional needs are met, children develop into responsible adults; but if the emotional need is not met, they may violate acceptable standards, expressing anger toward parents who did not meet their needs, and seeking love in inappropriate places. Dr. Ross Campbell, the psychiatrist who first told me about the emotional love tank, says that in his many years of treating adolescents who have been involved in sexual misconduct, he has never treated such an adolescent whose emotional need for love has been met by the parents. His opinion was that almost all sexual misconduct in adolescents is rooted in an empty emotional love tank. Why is it that as the child gets older, our “Words of Affirmation” turn to words of condemnation?
Have you seen that in your community? A teenager runs away from home. The parents wring their hands, saying, “How could he do this to us after all we have done for him?” but the teenager is sixty miles down the road in some counselor’s office, saying, “My parents don’t love me. They have never loved me. They love my brother, but they don’t love me.” Do the parents, in fact, love that teenager? In the majority of cases, they do. Then what’s the problem? Very likely, the parents never learned how to communicate love in a language the child could understand. Perhaps they bought ball gloves and bicycles to show their love, but the child was crying, “Will someone play ball with me? Will someone go riding with me?” The difference between buying a ball glove and playing ball with a child may be the difference between an empty love tank and a full one. Parents can sincerely love their children (most do), but sincerity is not enough. We must learn to speak the primary love language of our children if we are to meet their emotional need for love. Let’s look at the five love languages in the context of loving children. WORDS OF AFFIRMATION
Parents typically give many affirming words when the child is young. Even before the child understands verbal communication, parents are saying, “What a pretty nose, what beautiful eyes, what curly hair,” and so on. When the child begins to crawl, we applaud every movement and give “Words of Affirmation.” When he begins to walk and stands with one hand against the couch, we stand two feet away and say, “Come on, come on, come on. That’s right! Walk. That’s right, walk.” The child takes half a step and falls and what do we say? We don’t say, “You dumb kid, can’t you walk?” Rather, we say, “Yea, good job!” So he gets up and tries again. Why is it that as the child gets older, our “Words of Affirmation” turn to words of condemnation? When the child is seven we walk into the room and tell him to put the toys in the toy box. Twelve toys are on the floor. We come back in five minutes and seven toys are in the box, and what do we say? “I told you to get these toys up. If you don’t get these toys up, I am going to—” What about the seven toys in the box? Why don’t we say, “Yea, Johnny, you put seven toys in the box. That’s great.” The other five would probably jump into the box! As the child gets older, we tend to condemn him for his failures rather than commend him for his successes. To a child whose primary love language is “Words of Affirmation,” our negative, critical, demeaning words strike terror to her psyche. Hundreds of thirty-five-year-old adults still hear words of condemnation spoken twenty years ago ringing in their ears: “You’re too fat; nobody will ever date you.” “You’re not a student. You may as well drop out of school.” “I can’t believe you are so dumb.” “You are irresponsible and will never amount to anything.” Adults struggle with self-esteem and feel unloved all their lives when their primary love language is violated in such a detrimental manner. QUALITY TIME
Quality time means giving a child undivided attention. For the small child, it means sitting on the floor and rolling a ball back and forth with him. We are talking about playing with cars or dolls. We are talking about playing in the sandbox and building castles, getting into his world, doing things with him. You may be into computers as an adult, but your child lives in a child’s world. You must get down on the child’s level if you eventually want to lead him to the adult world. As the child gets older and develops new interests, you must enter into those interests if you want to meet his needs. If he is into basketball, get interested in basketball, spend time playing basketball with him, take him to basketball games. If he is into piano, perhaps you could take a piano lesson or at least listen with undivided attention for part of his practice period. Giving a child your undivided attention says that you care, that he is important to you, that you enjoy being with him. Many adults, looking back on childhood, do not remember much of what their parents said, but they do remember what their parents did. One adult said, “I remember that my father never missed my high school games. I knew he was interested in what I was doing.” For that adult, “Quality Time” was an extremely important communicator of love. If “Quality Time” is the primary love language of your child and you speak that language, chances are he will allow you to spend quality time with him even through the adolescent years. If you do not give him quality time in the younger years, he will likely seek the attention of peers during the adolescent years and turn away from parents who may at that time desperately desire more time with their children. RECEIVING GIFTS
Many parents and grandparents speak the language of gifts excessively. In fact, when one visits toy stores, one wonders if parents believe that is the only language of love. If parents have the money, they tend to buy many gifts for their children. Some parents believe that that is the best way to show love. Some parents try to do for their children what their parents were unable to do for them. They buy things that they wish they had had as a child. But unless that is the primary love language of the child, gifts may mean little emotionally to the child. The parent has good intentions, but he/she is not meeting the emotional needs of the child by giving gifts. If the gifts you give are quickly laid aside, if the child seldom says “thank you,” if the child does not take care of the gifts that you have given, if she does not prize those gifts, chances are “Receiving Gifts” is not her primary love language. If, on the other hand, your child responds to you with much thanksgiving, if she shows others the gift and tells others how wonderful you are for buying the gift, if she takes care of the gift, if she puts it in a place of prominence in her room and keeps it polished, if she plays with it often over an extended period of time, then perhaps “Receiving Gifts” is her primary love language. What if you have a child for whom “Receiving Gifts” is his or her primary love language but you cannot afford many gifts? Remember, it’s not the quality or cost of the gift; it is the “thought that counts.” Many gifts can be handmade, and sometimes the child appreciates that gift more than an expensive, manufactured gift. In fact, younger children will often play with a box more than the toy that came in it. You can also find discarded toys and refinish them. The process of refinishing can become a project for both parent and child. You need not have lots of money in order to provide gifts for your children. ACTS OF SERVICE
When children are small, parents are continually doing “Acts of Service” for them. If they did not, the child would die. Bathing, feeding, and dressing all require a great deal of work in the first few years of a child’s life. Then comes cooking, washing, and ironing. Then comes packing lunches, running a taxi service, and helping with homework. Such things are taken for granted by many children, but for other children those things communicate love. Observe your children. Watch how they express love to others. That is a clue to their love language.
If your child is often expressing appreciation for ordinary acts of service, that is a clue that they are emotionally important to him or her. Your acts of service are communicating love in a meaningful way. When you help him with a science project, it means more than a good grade. It means “My parent loves me.” When you fix a bicycle, you do more than get him back on wheels. You send him away with a full tank. If your child consistently offers to help you with your work projects, it probably means that in his mind that is a way of expressing love, and “Acts of Service” likely is his primary love language. PHYSICAL TOUCH
We have long known that “Physical Touch” is an emotional communicator to children. Research has shown that babies who are handled often develop better emotionally than babies who are not. Naturally many parents and other adults pick up an infant, hold it, cuddle it, kiss it, squeeze it, and speak silly words to it. Long before the child understands the meaning of the word love, she feels loved. Hugging, kissing, patting, holding hands are all ways of communicating love to a child. The hugging and kissing of a teenager will differ from the hugging and kissing of an infant. Your teenager may not appreciate such behavior in the presence of peers, but that doesn’t mean that he does not want to be touched, especially if it is his primary love language. If your teenager is regularly coming up behind you and grabbing your arms, lightly pushing you, grabbing you by the ankle when you walk through the room, tripping you, those are all indications that “Physical Touch” is important to him. Observe your children. Watch how they express love to others. That is a clue to their love language. Take note of the things they request of you. Many times, their request will be in keeping with their own love language. Notice the things for which they are most appreciative. Those are likely indicators of their primary love language. Our daughter’s love language is “Quality Time”; thus, as she grew up, she and I often took walks together. During her high school years while she attended Salem Academy, one of the oldest girls’ academies in the country, we took walks amid the quaint surroundings of Old Salem. The Moravians have restored the village, which is more than two hundred years old. Walking the cobblestone streets takes one back to a simpler time. Strolling through the ancient cemetery gives one a sense of reality about life and death. In those years, we walked three afternoons a week and had long discussions in that austere setting. She is a medical doctor now, but when she comes home, she almost always says, “Want to take a walk, Dad?” I have never refused her invitation. My son would never walk with me. He said, “Walking’s dumb! You’re not going anywhere. If you’re going somewhere, drive.” “Quality Time” was not his primary love language. As parents, we often try to pour all of our children into the same mold. We go to parenting conferences or read books on parenting, get some wonderful ideas, and want to go home and practice with each child. The problem is that each child is different, and what communicates love to one child may not communicate love to another. Forcing a child to take a walk with you so that you can spend quality time together will not communicate love. We must learn to speak our children’s language if we want them to feel loved.
It is never too late to express love. If you have older children and realize that you have been speaking the wrong love language, why not tell them? “You know, I have been reading a book on how to express love, and I realize that I have not been expressing my love to you in the best way through the years. I have tried to show you my love by _______, but I’m now realizing that that probably has not communicated love to you, that your love language is probably something different. I am beginning to think that your love language is probably _______. You know, I really do love you, and I hope that in the future I can express it to you in better ways.” You might even want to explain the five love languages to them and discuss your love language as well as theirs. Perhaps you do not feel loved by your older children. If they are old enough to understand the concept of love languages, your discussion may open their eyes. You may be surprised at their willingness to start speaking your love language and, if they do, you might be surprised at the way your feelings and attitudes toward them begin to change. When family members start speaking each other’s primary love language, the emotional climate of a family is greatly enhanced.
chapter fourteen
Date: 2015-02-03; view: 1041
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