The Five Love Languages
The five love languages pertain to the excellent book by Gary Chapman where he explains how each of us respond differently within our human relationships.
Simply put, each person demonstrates their love and kindness for a given family member in different ways, each style synonymous with a different spoken language like English or French. In like fashion, we are more receptive to some kinds of interactions with other family members than others. They key is this, just because we may be speaking English does not mean that the other family member understands English. They may be expecting to hear French!
Each of the five love languages is listed below along with a few brief comments.
Words of Appreciation & Affirmation
Some children, even grown up children, innately hang on every word from the parents, looking for words of appreciation and affirmation. Nothing else satisfies their hunger.
Have you ever been in a foreign country like Vietnam for a number of days, during which you heard no native English spoken? Can you imagine yourself finally boarding a United Airlines flight back to the good old U.S.A. and hearing English spoken even if with a Tennessee accent? How you savor it!
Or perhaps you’ve been traveling abroad for quite a few days, when you see the “golden arches” at a distance, and you have to have a McDonald’s cheeseburger!
This is how hungry our kids, and even adults, can be when we long for any of these love languages, but don’t hear them.
Obviously, the words of appreciation must be genuine, and well deserved. But parents cannot fail to speak the right words of appreciation and affirmation when special deeds or events warrant that they be spoken.
Some children may go to the ends of the earth to try and please one parent or the other. Do not withhold what you know is good from your children.
Proverbs 3:27
Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to do it.
Acts of Service
Some children communicate their love toward their parents by keeping their room clean. Or taking the trash out without being asked.
Some dads and moms don’t feel that their children love them unless they are doing the acts of service that they have requested of their children. Some parents will interpret their children’s failure to do their chores as an affront to them, or an unkind act targeted at them specifically. This is generally not the case at all.
While it is true that most family members know what button to push to get us riled up, far fewer family members genuinely understand what buttons delight us to our very core.
My twin brother and I learned very early on that our dad was an acts of service kind of guy. During our junior and senior high school days, we washed and frequently waxed up to six vehicles that my dad owned without even being asked at least every couple of weeks. We mowed the lawn, and even edged along the sidewalks of our huge front lawn (by So Cal standards), again without being asked. In the winter after a snowfall, we would be out with our shovels scooping snow before 6 AM with our dad at his businesses, our grandparents, and neighbors…without being asked.
Working with dad was how we earned time to be with dad. And we loved it.
With all of these love languages, they are both spoken (given away) and heard (received). If we want to really show one of our children how much we love them, we speak the love language that they long to hear.
Gift Giving
Some of us feel that the greatest act of love we can show is to give a gift to someone else. And of course, if that gift is not fully appreciated by the recipient, the giver will normally feel disconnected and disregarded.
Two of my children demonstrated early on that they were gift-givers. When they barely had two nickels to their name, they would surprise Linda with some of the most wonderful things so truly from the bottom of their heart, exhausting their financial resources to do so.
Quality Time
Some of our children just want to hang out with us. It doesn’t matter what we’re doing; they just want to be there with us.
When my kids were small and we were visiting Grandma’s and Grandpa’s home in Oregon, two of my kids would always want to sit on the counter and just watch Grandma do her magic in the kitchen. It didn’t matter what she was up to. And Grandma knew that love language well! The delight that her patient and observing eye brought through those simple times together made a life-long imprint on my kids.
Dads, your sons often want to hang with you out in the garage when you are doing cool stuff. With our daughter, it was hanging out in the kitchen doing cool stuff with mom. I still claim the prize though, of being the one who helped Kristen make her first two apple pies ever! Immediately thereafter, all Kristen could talk about was wanting to do an apple pie company with me over the Internet. At sixteen then, even my mention of an apple pie would bring a sparkle from her eyes.
Physical Touching / Closeness
Every child needs human touch and closeness, but some more so than others.
All of your children need to experience your warmth and touch. But an extra special word to you dads: if you have sons, you must touch them, and hug them too! Forget being hung up on macho-stuff with your small sons, and ignoring the need for your touch!
The vast majority of boys who fall into homosexuality had very poor relationships with their fathers, and you, perhaps more than any other factor in their lives, can guard them from this remote possibility by being close to them especially when they are young.
If you have sons, dads, I highly recommend that you read Dobson’s book titled Bringing Up Boys.
Daughters too, need the warm and kind touch of their loving dad. Many girls will gravitate to extreme physical relationships with boys once they hit the teenage years if they were denied this loving care from their fathers while they were growing up.
As my sons got older, we did a lot of wrestling around on the floor. Oh the crazy times we had! And of course Rusty the dog was involved too. One of the things that I would frequently ask the boys was whether they would still treat me right when they were all grown and could gang up on me. We laugh about that now on occasion, because I am totally out-matched!
Thank you for the info. Much appreciated.
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