The Five Love Languages of Children, Gary Chapman & Ross Campell, M.D.

A friend of mine told me about this book not long ago and I put it on hold at the library. I haven't read the original one, but remembered hearing a lot about it and doing a quiz to find mine (but I had forgotten).

I cheated and had my 9 year old take the quiz on their website: http://www.5lovelanguages.com/
But let's be honest, it's a lot easier for you to determine your own love language and then tell others about it than it is to decipher it out for your own. My 3 year old is too young to determine; that comes around age 5 or 6 or so. So I took the quiz and had my husband take it as well.

I feel like I learned a lot about myself and why I react the way I do (inwardly mostly) to certain things or the lack of certain things. I am overwhelmingly "Quality Time". This explains why I always just KNEW I didn't need a guy who would buy me things (incidentally, when faced with getting a gift or giving up one of the OTHER love languages, I always ignored the gift, so I scored 0 there. Don't get me wrong, I love to get gifts, but if doing so means I have to give up something else, I don't want it!), but that I always knew I needed a guy who would BE there. I couldn't be married to a businessman who was required to travel a lot. That just doesn't compute with my quality time need :-) It also explained to me why I feel so compelled to make sure that my kids have quality time with their grandparents, even it it might sometimes mean that we visit them instead of going somewhere else on vacation (someday our ability to do BOTH will emerge, but not for awhile); because by giving them time with their grandkids, I am expressing love in the deepest way I feel it. And it also explains to me why I sometimes feel hurt if people (friends and family alike) don't make time for me. While it's not an affront to me or their lack of care for me, because it's my primary love language, I tend to internalize it personally. Knowing this helps me to be aware that those hurt feelings are mine and mine alone and hat I can't be angry with others or assume they don't care. They just express their thoughtfulness in other ways and I can totally accept that! In short, it kind of explained to me why people don't always think the same way I do, lol.

My husband is Acts of Service and my 9 year old Words of Affirmation. Light bulb moments GALORE. It definitely isn't going to be a super easy adjustment, but knowing this and the other things mentioned in the book (discipline, how to teach kids how to manage anger in order to prevent passive/aggressive behavioral patterns), hopefully my family will be able to express love in more meaningful ways to each other.