Chapter 9: Learning & The Love Languages

Below are Nicole's thoughts on Chapter 9 of The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman & Ross Campbell, M.D.  Please know that what we all learn from a study may be different.  We'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter as well.  Please feel free to leave a comment in the section below this post!

Below are the things that the authors talked about in Chapter 9 that impacted me the most:

*  True discipline can help to develop a child's intellect and social skills that will serve him for a lifetime.  p. 130

*  Children discover life through the five senses.  A home environment that is rich in stimulation of vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell will feed their natural desire to discover and learn.  p. 131

*  Children are more emotional than cognitive; they remember feelings more readily than they do facts.  p. 131

*  ...emotional development can make a tremendous difference in the child's learning readiness and process, and this is where parents can help the most.  We can prime our child's learning pump by continually filling his emotional tank.  p. 132

*  As you consistently speak the five languages of love-physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, and acts of service-you are giving your child much intellectual stimulation.  p. 132

*  A question parents often ask is , "How can I motivate my child?"  We can motivate only after we have filled our children's love tanks and trained them to mange their anger.  p. 137

*  If you understand your children's primary love language, you can enhance their daily experiences by speaking their primary love language as they leave for school in the morning and as they return in the afternoon.  Those are two important times in the lives of school-age children:  To be touched emotionally by their parents on leaving and returning home gives them security and courage to face the challenges of the day.  p. 140

Read the last point above again....you can enhance their daily experiences by speaking their primary love language as they leave for school in the morning and as they return in the afternoon.  Oh boy did the guilt over power me as I first read this.  How many times do I rush my kids in the morning ready to send them off to school so no buses are missed?  How many times do I run in the doors for therapies to drop off my son with autism so we aren't late?  How often do I scoop them up and rush to the next thing on our list?  Immediately after reading this I knew how guilty I was of doing this and I made this a priority of mine.  For my child who doesn't have autism, I speak his love language.  Our mornings are now smoother with less yelling and craziness.  For my son with autism, I try to speak all five of the love languages to him while trying to figure out which one reaches him the best.  The funny thing I've noticed about my son with autism is that his love language are sometimes different each day.

The thing I am learning the most from this study is no matter what is going on in the lives of our children the most important thing we can do is speak these love languages to them to help fill up their tank so that when the world around us chips aways at them, they are so full of this love that they do not crack.