It was years ago now that I first read Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages and I recall being quite confronted by the ideas. The basic premise is that there are five main ways we feel love: words of affirmation, acts of service, receiving gifts, quality time and physical touch. I responded by feeling let down by all these people who I now felt did not know me well and had failed to really love me, to know me. So I put the book away….
Several years later the love language notion showed up in The Marriage Course my man and I completed. The course was a bit like getting your car serviced. You know you should do it regularly to keep your ‘vehicle’ on the road and well maintained but you get slack, it costs money and you forget. So it turns out that learning to love one another and working on a marriage is just like care maintenance. Loving your partner requires regular focus and the love language framework really helps.
Would you believe that raising kids is the same. We need to know how they receive love and give love so that we can best love and affirm them. This image above is a simple, timely reminder of how to love your children and your teenagers practically -the actions, the way to communicate and what to avoid. This is a clear summary of how to implement love languages in your home. A page to print for your journal or use as your screen saver, so that living out the love languages is possible.
slowlifestill 