New York Times best-selling author, Dr. Gary Chapman, joins host, Carlos Whittaker, to talk about how to discover the five ways your children interpret love based on insights from his popular book, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts.
Voices In This Episode
YOUR CUE
- Observe your kids. Take some time this week to pay close attention, ask questions, and begin to discover your child’s love language. Then do something intentional to communicate love in the language they understand best.
- Check in on your kids regularly. Ask your kids this question, “On a scale of one to 10, how full is your love tank? What can I do to help fill it?”
- Wrap discipline in your child’s love language. Your child will receive your discipline better when they understand they are loved. When disciplining your child, make sure to use that opportunity to still show them love in the way they understand.
EPISODE RECAP
It’s likely most of us have heard about Dr. Gary Chapman’s book, The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts, and some of us would dare to reveal its contents helped save our marriages. So naturally, being a podcast to help parents do life better with our kids, we’d jump at the chance to talk to Dr. Chapman about how we can extend that knowledge loving our kids better.
All of our kids experience and show love differently, and for families with multiple kids, it’s likely one kid has a way of understanding love that is different from their sibling. As parents, it’s easy — and sometimes safer — to treat all of our kids the same way, but Dr. Chapman says it’s imperative parents communicate love in the specific way their child understands it.
“The question is not, ‘Do you love your children?’ The question is, ‘Do your children feel loved?” Dr. Chapman asks.
The five ways children and adults interpret love fall into these five categories (or love languages):
- Words of affirmation
- Gifts
- Acts of service
- Quality Time
- Physical touch
In today’s episode, Dr. Chapman shares how parents can discover what their child’s love language is, how to discipline while using your kid’s love language, and what parents have to lose if they don’t start showing their kids love in the way they understand it.
