How to speak your child’s love language – A Focus on the Family podcast with Dr Gary Chapman

March 10, 2022 admin Family, Mission
On the Focus of the Family podcast, New York Best Seller author, Dr Gary Chapman will discuss his book “The Five Love Language of Children” to help parents build a foundation of unconditional love for their child. In this first part of the two part podcast, Dr Gary Chapman will address how to keep your child’s “love tank” filled to strengthen the parent-child bond.
Understanding the Five Love Languages.
Dr Gary Chapman has become well-known for this critique of the five different ways we as humans can express and receive love. The author identifies the five unique styles of communicating love known as “love languages.” Dr Chapman categorizes these as physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time (giving your child your undivided attention), gift-giving and acts of service.
As a parent, you need to learn how to communicate love to each individual child. Dr Gary Chapman notes:
“One of the deepest emotional needs a child has is the need to feel loved by the most significant people in their lives.”
Parenting is tough work and this can be made more complex by recognising that sincerely loving your child is not necessarily enough to ensure your child grows up to become emotionally healthy.
Recognising Your Own Upbringing
We all have a history we didn’t choose that can impact our parenting. Our upbringing can influence the love language we use with our children. Dr Chapman suggests a parent’s default setting is often what we grew up with but love can get lost in translation if this is not the primary love language of your child. Dr Chapman recommends parents become more self-aware of their default setting.
“Nothing should be taboo. As parents, we need to get out of our comfort zones.”
Most adults did not receive all five love languages growing up so it can feel unnatural in conveying some of these love languages. But for your children to grow up emotionally healthy, it’s important to recognise unhealthy patterns you learnt as a child that may be affecting your ability to communicate love to your child.
An example given is the perfectionist parent who may be giving far more negative words to their child than positive words, demoralizing a child that can make the relationship with the child strained which often becomes evident in the teen years. God can give the strength to change a broken relationship but it often involves the first step of sincerely apologizing to your child.
Learning to speak the same love language
Dr Chapman’s background initially was in anthropology and compares foreign language skills with emotional language skills. As in the case with a foreign language, you can communicate all sorts of things but if the other person does not speak the same language they will not comprehend any of it. Likewise, says Dr Chapman, a parent may use one love language that is their preference but this is not the love language of their child, resulting in their child not having their emotional needs met. Dr Chapman observes:
“If you have three children they may each have a different love language.”

For parents with more than one child, the task is to learn the primary language for each of their children. Dr Chapman warns this does not mean that you do not love your child with the other love languages available, rather you provide heavy doses of their primary love language, sprinkling the other four, to help your child feel loved. As Dr Chapman points out, the child will need to know how to receive and give in all five of the love languages to mature into a healthy adult.

To hear more from Dr Chapman on Focus on the Family, listen here. 

Dr Gary Chapman

Gary Chapman, Ph.D.—author, speaker, and counselor—has a passion for people, and for helping them form lasting relationships.

Chapman is a well-known marriage counselor and director of marriage seminars. The 5 Love Languages® is one of Chapman’s most popular titles, topping various bestseller charts for years, selling over twenty million copies and has been on the New York Times bestsellers list since 2007.