Love languages in a family

I don’t know how you feel about the five love languages material.   While it has created a marketing juggernaut all of its own which some shy away from - the concept and ideas involved can be very helpful.  To date, I have really only thought about it in terms of adult relationships, most specifically marriage, but also to understand my extended family better.

In reading some more parenting books recently, I came to realise that these were helpful things to discuss with our kids.   Please note I have not read the Five Love Languages for Children book, just other books that refer to it!  I read the adult one years ago.

So we got out the butcher’s paper the other night – thought about the 5 languages, what each might include and then got to pick two that we thought meant the most to us.   You can see the writing in the photo below. (I removed the indicators of which we all are)

What was worth noticing for our family was: 

• All five of us cared about time – either family time with the 5 of us, or one-to-one time (especially kids with mum or dad).  We have realised those kids’ dates / individual times with each need to be a high priority in our calendars.
• None of us chose presents as our top two languages.  That might explain why none of us get that excited by gifts!

 It was an easy, fun exercise that only took about 10-15 mins after dinner.   It might be something to consider with your family too!