Acts of Service, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Physical Touch, and Gifting – each child has their own way to feel loved, and to give love back to others.
Identify the love language of your LO and strengthen the bond with them by ‘speaking’ their language. Helping to understand how your child speaks love will encourage a healthy relationship within the five different areas, which will come in useful in their own relationships as adults. It will also go a long way towards developing strong and healthy communication channels between you and your child.
ACTS OF SERVICE
If Acts of Service is your child’s primary (or even secondary love language) they thrive off doing things for you – whether helping to cook dinner, clear the dinner table, or bring in the shopping, these kiddies find it fulfilling helping others.
Does your child speak the language of ‘Acts of Service’?
What are some of the ways they display this?
Things to encourage:
- help them learn a new, helpful task
- join them in tasks, participation removes the burden of doing chores
- support and encourage their efforts
Things to avoid:
- create more tasks for them, especially one’s that are not appropriate for their age
- stifle their independence by doing too much for them, if they actively want to do something – let me
- if they are struggling with a task, jump in and take over – allow them to persist with encouragement before jumping in
Ways to ‘speak’ their language:
- prepare meals together
- do household chores together
- involve your child in errands – let them tick off groceries from the list as you put them in the cart
- ask them , “how can I help you today?”
- encourage them to ask someone, ‘how can I help you today?” (and set an example by doing the same)
- involve your child in routine tasks, i.e. when running their bath, you run the water while they bring their pj’s into the bathroom
- teach your child a new, age appropriate chore to encourage their autonomy and participation in helping out around the house
- thank them for doing tasks without your having to ask them, i.e. hanging their towel up after their bath or putting their dirty clothes into the laundry hamper
- include your child in surprising your partner by making them breakfast in bed (this encourages acts of service for others)
- learn which tasks your child really doesn’t enjoy doing, and see how you can help them or ‘switch’ tasks to make the experience more pleasurable
- be willing to help family members out with needed chores that they aren’t able to do by themselves
Early on it may seem like your child is dominant in all of the love languages. This is normal as they begin to navigate relationships with yourself, their parent, and with others. As they grow older, they will settle into their primary language of displaying love and affection for others.
Next, I’ll share some tips on Quality Time, so don’t forget to follow along and share with Mommy friend who’d also like to follow along and discover their child’s love language.👧❤️🧒
