Below are Nicole's thoughts on chapter 10 of The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell, M.D. Please know that what we all learn from a study is usually different. We'd love to hear your thoughts on this chapter as well. Feel free to comment below the post!
In Chapter 10 of The Five Love Languages of Children we learn how anger and love work hand in hand with helping our children deal with anger. The authors do an excellent job on helping us to understand anger, how to control it ourselves and how to teach our children to the do the same. If you have not read this chapter, I encourage you to do so. I'm not going to go into detail on all of the helpful hints they gave on helping your children through it. Instead, I want to look at one point that the authors made that really touched home to me in dealing with anger and autism.
Anger management is the most difficult part of parenting because children are limited in the ways they can express anger. They have only two options, verbal or behavioral expression, and both are difficult for parents to handle. Parents find it hard to understand that the anger must come out some way, that it cannot be totally bottled up. p. 153
Mix in a little autism and it makes it that much more difficult to help our children "get their anger out". With our kids, the easiest way to get out their anger is behaviorally. Most of our children struggle with verbal expression so their go to response to anger and frustration is going to be behaviorally.
So how do we help our children with autism express their anger? We need to look back at chapter 10 on two things that the authors say will help children deal with anger.
The first is we need to learn to control our own anger. On page 148, the authors write the following...."Parents who have not learned to control their own anger are not likely to train their children how to do it. And yet, this kind of training is essential for the well-being of children and of society. If you have never learned how to manage your own anger, we strongly urge you to get some help in this area, so that you will be able to teach your children by example and word how to best handle their anger."
This especially true for children on the spectrum. I don't know about your child, but my son is so in tune to my feelings. There are times where he can point out my anger and frustration before I even notice it. It's important for me to control this anger and frustration so that he doesn't pick up on it and it doesn't effect him.
The other point the authors made in this chapter that I feel can really benefit us as parents of children with autism is the following:
"....keep his emotional love tank full of unconditional love." p. 153
How do we keep their emotional tank full of unconditional love? Showering them with their love language.
With our children on the spectrum, we may or may not be able to tell which love language speaks best to them. Therefore, it is important that we shower them with all five love languages to help fill their tank.
I am well aware that with our children it is going to be a little more difficult to help them control their anger. There is so much more going on with them internally that we may not be aware of. With my son, when he eats something that hurts his belly or is feeling even the slightest bit sick we see more OCD which in turn can bring anxiety and anger. We have a whole different ballgame going on over here. However, at the same time, I do believe our children are capable of so much in this life. Including learning how to control their anger. It may take a lot longer. It may only be a little bit of controlling their anger going on. But every bit will help them.
As mentioned above, the authors went into more detail on how to help your children with their anger, including a "ladder chart" on ways to teach them. I didn't go into a lot of detail on this however, these steps are all important on teaching our kids to deal with anger. Our children need to be taught different ways in dealing with their anger.
So let's start trying to help our children deal with their anger. Learn how to control your own. Shower them with the love and follow the steps that the authors wrote in Chapter 10.
The most important thing to remember, in my opinion, is to keep their emotional tanks full!
(Please note that when dealing with the behaviors with autism, it's important to look at different treatments to help your child in dealing with these behaviors. Every child is different in what approach works best for them. For me, my son responds to ABA/Verbal Behavior when dealing with anger and behaviors. In my home, we will be continuing to do ABA/VB and adding in some of the suggestions that the authors made in chapter 10 of The Five Love Languages.)
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Wednesday, March 19, 2014
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.
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.
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