This week I talked a lot about feeling valued as a stay at home mom, and opened it up to you to tell me what things you do to feel loved, appreciated, and valued, when the people you are devoting all of your time and effort to don’t know how to express gratitude.
I was surprised at how many of you messaged me about love languages! Specifically at how being open about your love language with your spouse leads to better communication and understanding of how they can help you succeed in your role.
I love talking about love languages! I think it’s so interesting how everyone needs something different to feel the same emotional connections. I’ve been thinking recently about our children’s love languages, and how they are unique individuals too, who need to feel loved in their own specific way. I decided that since we are on a roll with this topic already, that now would be a good time to publish this post!
The Five Love Languages
To start, let’s identify what the five love languages are:
1. Physical Touch
2. Words of Affirmation
3. Acts of Service
4. Quality Time
5. Gifts
It’s likely that your love language will change depending on the stage of life you’re in, and it’s also common to identify with multiple love languages. Don’t be surprised if your child is the same way, they might start out loving words of affirmation, switch to quality time when a sibling is born, and switch to receiving gifts when they understand what birthdays are 😉 I noticed my children’s love languages start to show when they were both babies, less than a year old! So it’s never too early to start looking for signs of your child’s love language.
Identifying Your Child’s Love Language:
I think love languages can be identified very early on. I noticed Elliott’s starting to come out when she was about six months old! Elliott was always a really chill baby, and since I had a two year old running around Elliott was frequently left to play on the floor when she was a newborn. She liked rolling around and playing on her mat, so that’s where she spent a lot of time.
As she got older and her personality started to show through, she developed this preference of being held. Not that she didn’t like being put down, but she loved snuggles, hugs and kisses! I remember taking a flight from San Antonio to Orlando, Elliott was six months old and our flight attendant asked if she could hold Elliott while Reagan and I got situated in our seats. The flight attendant was young and cute, and Elliott just adored her! She gave her hug after hug after hug, helped the girl with the safety presentation, and stayed with her for a good portion of the flight! It was the first time I’d seen Elliott show love to a stranger, in a physical way.
Elliott learned how to give kisses when she was nine months old, and it’s been nonstop physical touch since then! She wants to be snuggled and rocked, she loves back rubs and foot rubs, and always wants to be held!
Reagan’s love language is a mix of words of affirmation and spending quality time together. She loves doing something helpful or smart so you recognize her and tell her what a great job she did. She wants to hear that you love her, and she gets very upset if you tell her something she doesn’t want to hear. She also lives for one on one time together, and always asks me to sit next to her, asks if I want to play a game with her, and (heartbreakingly) asks me to stop working. I remember starting to notice signs of these preferences when Reagan was about nine months old, so if you have a baby it’s likely you’ll notice their love language very soon too!
Ways to Show Love to Your Child Based on Love Language
Once you’ve identified your child’s love language, it can be difficult to show them love in a way they will respond to if it is different than your love language and how you’re comfortable showing love. Sometimes it’s hard for me to help Elliott feel loved and comforted when she’s upset, because I’m not a physical touch person and I wouldn’t want to be touched in a similar situation. But it’s so important to remove ourselves from the situation, look at what our individual child needs, and do our best to fulfill those needs.
Here are some ideas for showing love to our kids, based on the five different love languages!
Physical Touch
1. Start each day with cuddles and rocking in a chair.
2. Eat meals sitting next to each other, hold hands or give pats on the back in between bites.
3. Always give hugs and kisses before separating, before nap time, and before bedtime.
4. Schedule time for massages post bath time.
5. Build a fort, make a comfy blanket pile, and read books together.
6. Hold hands when walking in the store or park.
7. BABY WEAR. Check out my post on babywearing here.
Words of Affirmation
1. Always say “good morning,” “good night,” and frequently ask “how are you feeling?”
2. Say I LOVE YOU all day long.
3. Express gratitude when they help you, when they are polite, when they share, whenever they do something kind for others.
4. Say “you are so ________ smart/beautiful/kind/sweet/thoughtful/caring…”
5. To correct a negative behavior, express how much you love when they do the opposite. Instead of “you shouldn’t hit your sister” say “I love it when you are kind and soft to your sister, it makes me so happy.”
Acts of Service
1. Help them with their chores.
2. Work together on homework, crafts or projects.
3. Make them their favorite treat as a surprise.
4. For teenagers, wash their car or do their laundry.
Quality Time Together
1. Plan a mommy and me date, let them pick the activities.
2. Maintain eye contact when they speak to you or ask you a question.
3. Meet them at school to have lunch together.
4. Let them teach you something–their favorite song, a new game, how to play a sport, something they learned in school, how to draw, etc.
5. Before bed, lie down together and talk about how your days went.
6. Before school, take a spontaneous trip to get smoothies or donuts.
Gifts
1. Give them an extra pancake or glass of juice with breakfast.
2. Write notes and put them in their lunchbox.
3. Take them to the library and let them pick new books each week. If the library is having a sale, let them pick one to keep.
4. Take them on a treasure hunt, and find special rocks and flowers to bring home and put in a special box.
5. Engage in their hobbies, and help them earn money to buy things they want.
6. Make everything you gift meaningful and special, let them know that they are receiving something very valuable, even if it’s small and inexpensive.
I hope these ideas are helpful, and give you the tools you need to correctly identify your children’s love languages and then express love in the most meaningful way to them. There are tons of resources available online that go more in depth about love languages, and I highly encourage reading them to correctly identify the love languages of everyone who is close to you and important in your life!