Speak Your Child's Love Language

When you think of love between a mother and child, what do you think of? Hugs, kisses, meeting his or her physical needs? What if your child speaks a different love language? How can you learn to speak your child’s love language? You may be familiar with The Five Love Languages book…but if you’re not, please get familiar!

This book has helped probably millions of people understand their spouses better, but it works for kids too! Chances are, you need to be a multi-lingual mom in order to communicate your love to each of your children. If you don’t say, “I love you,” in your child’s love language, it’s as futile as saying, “je t’aime” to someone who doesn’t speak French.

It is important for children to recognize their love languages too. When your child recognizes his own love language, it will make it easier for you to communicate your love for him, and also, it goes a long way in a marriage! When your child gets married, it will be extremely helpful if he already knows and can communicate his love language to his spouse.

How Do You know Your Child’s Love Language?

The easiest way to know your child’s (or your spouse’s) love language is to observe how he or she communicates love to you. Most often, if your child’s love language is gifts, she will give you gifts—and it will be important to her that you love them! My daughter’s love language is words of affirmation. How do I know? Because she leaves little notes on my pillow, or in my computer, telling me that I’m a great mom!

And even knowing that, I rarely remember to do the same for her! Each of the love languages is covered in our home—physical affection; quality time; words of affirmation; gifts; and acts of service. It takes a lot of effort to be multi-lingual, but when you do speak your child’s love language, it makes all the difference in the world!

But how do you speak another language? Don’t worry! I’ve got you coverd! Here are some examples for you LLLs (Love Language Learners) out there, because it gets trickier in some categories as children get older.

Five Ways to Say, “I Love You” in Every Love Language:

Physical Affection

Hugs and Kisses–Obviously, this is quite easy when you have toddlers and young children. Some kids aren’t quite as comfortable with this as they get older though.

Holding Your Child’s Hand—Again, this is easy when they’re young and it serves duel purposes. You’re keeping them safe while you’re out for a walk, and also showing them love through affection.

Head Rub—Teenage boys and young men whose love language is affection may struggle with finding appropriate ways to communicate love and to be told, “I love you,” in their language. I try to rub my son’s head whenever I walk by him and he’s sitting down. (Of course, don’t do this if he’s just spent half an hour fixing his hair!)

Shoulder/Neck Rub—This is another one that is appropriate with children of all ages. When your kids are young, you can gently rub their backs to show affection. Now that my son is practically a grown man, he definitely has tension in his neck and shoulders and appreciates a good shoulder rub.

Arm wrestling—This is a very good way to show love to teen boys who need physical touch. You’re holding hands, but in a VERY macho way! I still remember the day my sons finally beat me in arm wrestling! (It was a BIG DEAL!!)

Gifts

This is my love language. Here’s the thing about gifts—most people think, “So, to tell you, ‘I love you’ I have to break the bank?!” No. Gifts last a long time to someone whose love language is gifts. They don’t have to be big and they don’t have to be given every day because when you give someone a gift and that is their love language, it truly is the thought that counts. This is especially true when a child’s love language is gifts.

Small trinkets—when your kids are little, lovers of gifts will think of any little gift as a true treasure. You do not have to go big on this one—smaller things more often will be better. Some ideas: superballs, a new can of Play-Doh, a matchbox car, etc.

Necessities with a little “extra”—for little ones: character underwear instead of plain; for older kids: a new toothbrush in her favorite color; a pair of fun socks; a nice pair of leather work gloves (my teenage son’s request!)

School/Art Supplies—Every year on the first day of school, I give my kids a stack of their school supplies, wrapped up with ribbon and a card congratulating them on the start of another school year. I try to add a special non-necessity supply that they had their eyes on in the store, but I told them they didn’t need. (I.e. watercolor pencils, erasable pens, gel pens, a fun pencil bag; etc.) They all love it and it gives them something to look forward to that first day. Sometimes, it’s about presentation and sometimes, it’s about those small touches.

Gifts for others—Gift lovers also love giving gifts! If you have a child whose love language is gifts, bring that child with you when choosing a gift for a cousin, sibling, etc. Gifts can be in the form of a special opportunity too—especially if it involves choosing something for someone else. You could go to a garage sale and give your child a bit of money to spend on herself and a bit of money to spend on her sister. She will feel loved and trusted!

Bigger Items They’ve Had Their Eye On—When it comes to birthday gifts, the more you have paid attention to things they may want or need, the more loved your child will feel. Not just anything will do when your love language is gifts. The more thoughtful the gift, the more loved the recipient will feel. (Hint: Check out these best gifts for teen guys and best gifts for teen girls for more ideas!)

Words of Affirmation

Encouraging Words—This is the most obvious one. When a child’s love language is affirmation, you can usually tell because he usually offers affirmation to you. These kids need to hear encouraging words back! It can be as simple as, “I like how hard you worked on that!” to “You are growing up!” Whenever my daughter completes a task independently, she loves to hear how grown up she is! This works great for younger kids!

Older kids need encouragement too—notes left around the house, on your teenager’s school book or mirror, (we like to write on mirrors with dry-erase markers) or a card when your child is feeling especially discouraged are great ways to “speak” affirmation to your child.

Share affirming Bible verses with your child—Help your child memorize affirmation from the Lord Himself! Beware! Kids who need affirmation will look for it in two ways:

By showering you with affirmation (that’s like a “Fill My Bucket” neon sign!) and
By self-deprecating.

Try not to allow your child to do this. If my ‘words of affirmation’ daughter says something like, “Look at this project! It’s terrible!” I remind her that I would not allow her to say that about a sibling’s project, therefore, she may not speak that way about herself or her own projects. That’s also my signal that she needs some words of affirmation! But if your child does this too, choose words that have nothing to do with the self-deprecation, so as not to feed that habit.

Play the Affirmation Game—Sometimes we play a game in which we write something kind about each person in the family, and the person has to guess who said which thing. (Pretty sure we have some Hallmark movie to thank for this game!) This is a great way to show love through words of affirmation to each other. And even if no one else in the family needs this language spoken to them, it’s good for them to learn to speak another’s language too!

“I Love You Because…” Kids whose love language is words of affirmation love to hear, “I love you,” but you can make it more meaningful by including the “why.” For example, I love how thoughtful you are. I love you because you always cheer me up. Etc.

Quality Time

Play—Kids who love quality time love to play with their parents. My husband is so good at taking time to play with our kids, especially outside! They are constantly begging him to play with them and even when he’s tired, he usually obliges. It doesn’t have to be long—truly—ten minutes will fill a bucket and lasts for awhile!

Read—My daughter is constantly asking me to read “just a quick story, Mom.” She is often content with only one short book! Why is that SUCH a big deal sometimes?!?

Snuggle—Often, before naptime or bedtime, my children would say, “Snuggle me 2 minutes, Mom?” Again, not a big deal, but made a world of difference to the kids who need that quality time.

Quality time for older kids might look like just talking to them each day—uninterrupted by other siblings. So often, older kids get back-burnered because of less independent younger children needing our time and energy. Quality time with them is imperative if we want them to keep talking to us!

Date Night—We try to spend quality time with each of our children on the day of their birthday each month. (If your birthday is on the 10^th, it would be the 10^th of each month.) It’s usually around an hour and they get to choose Mom or Dad and what they get to do. Sometimes, it’s as simple as getting an ice cream sundae, or maybe going up to the arena for skating together. Either way, each kid gets some quality time with one of their parents each month.

Acts of Service

The Basics—There is just no shortage of this when our children are little. We are constantly serving them. How on Earth could we add more? When your children are little, it’s true, you are constantly serving them. But if you are cutting up their meat grudgingly, you’re sending a little less of a message of love than if you’re cutting it up lovingly. So, when your children are quite young, speaking love to your acts of service child is really about the attitude behind the essential acts of service.

Help Out with a Chore—If you expect your teens to do their own laundry, but you have time to throw in their favorite jeans, why not? This is a great way to show your “Acts of Service” child that you love him.

Cover for Him—Our sons have a lawn mowing business with a few different clients every summer. Last summer, there were times that the lawn needed mowing, but my son had a chance to do something fun. I don’t cover for him often, because I want him to learn the responsibility that work comes before a social life; but once in a while, it’s really important to show your kid some love by covering for him!

Clean up Her Mess—My daughter loves to play in her room if her room is clean. She also loves to make a mess in her room! I expect her to clean her room, but you and I both know that kids just don’t clean like moms! So, once in a while, I go and shovel out her room and she loves it!

Find Ways to Serve Others—Again, kids whose love language is “Acts of Service” usually thrive if they are able to serve someone else and feel proud of that. This goes beyond helping out around the house. How can your child serve someone else? Send a card? Can your teen help an elderly lady rake her leaves or mow her grass?

So, there you actually have 25 ways to say, “I Love You” to your children! What is your child’s love language? If you’re not speaking it, try one of these methods and see how different the response might be! Of course, every kid wants to hear, “I love you,” and those are powerful words, but sometimes, they are simply not enough. How do you let your children know that they are loved?