Counselor Gary Chapman created this concept after 30 years of marriage counseling but I believe that it can help in every relationship, especially your relationship with your children.
Happy hump day Britzies, today has been the first day for this week that I've felt like a normal person. My peptic ulcer literally went all Super Saiyan on me and I could barely walk straight. Pardon my dragon ball zee reference my husband has been binge-watching it all again so I guess it's rubbing off...sigh I hope your weeks been way better!
What is your love language? Over time and I'll say with age/wisdom I have come to learn the importance of knowing my love language and the love language of those around me. For those of you who have no idea what I am on about, there are five love languages (Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Physical Touch) that describe the way we feel loved and appreciated based on our individual personalities. If you want some more detail on this I have added a link for you to do just that and it also has a quiz where you can find out what your love language is.
Why is it important? Knowing the love languages of yourself and those around you will lead to everyone actually feeling loved and appreciated. Communication is important in relationships but knowing your love languages are just as important. Counselor Gary Chapman created this concept after 30 years of marriage counseling but I believe that it can help in every relationship, especially your relationship with your children.
Children's love language is quality time and it was no different for me. It was something I did often with my dad but not with my mother as she was always working. My mother's love language was giving and receiving gifts and as great as it was I still ended up feeling neglected and unloved and my mother felt like I was ungrateful which in turn put even more strain on our already rocky relationship.
Since I was adopted and already dealing with feelings of rejection and not being good enough this misunderstanding added a lot more damage. Now I'm not saying that it will be the same for every child but the thing is that even if we don't realize it we have so much influence over our children, and when we make them feel negative they have no way to objectively evaluate the situation and often times they blame themselves for the situation.
Feeling loved is as essential to our children as breathing and sleeping. Affection is the emotional food they need to grow. No parent is perfect, but once you have a child, no matter what, you have to work to make sure that your child feels loved and appreciated. Knowing their love language is a start, as your children get older their love languages change so always be willing to put in the work. Get to know them better so you can love them better.
Much love my Britzie’s XOXO
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