Speaking Love to Children

One of the most basic needs children have is to be loved. Often children do not feel loved, even though their parents and teachers love them very much. Gary Chapman refers to it as "keeping their love tanks full." How can you fill a child's love tank? By discovering and using a person's primary emotional love language.

The five love languages are:

• Physical Touch
• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Gifts
• Acts of Service

When leaders discover and use a child's primary love language, the child will feel loved. Let's explore each of the love languages.

Physical Touch
The easiest of the languages to use, touch includes more than hugging or kissing. A handshake, a hand on the arm, an arm around the shoulder, or a "high five," speaks love to a child whose language is touch. Physical touch is necessary for healthy physical and emotional development.

Words of Affirmation
Praise, encouragement, affection, and positive guidance speak love to a child with this love language. Positive words build up a child and instill self-confidence and individual worth. Saying I love you is important. Children need to hear that they are doing a good job, that you are glad to see them, and that you care about them.

Quality Time
This may be the most challenging love language to speak at church. Giving a child just a few minutes of your undivided attention speaks love. When you listen carefully to a child share a story or event, you communicate love.

Gifts
Some children feel most loved when they receive gifts. Gifts do not have to be expensive. A handmade card or a sticker speaks love to a child.

Acts of Service
When leaders do something for children they cannot do for themselves (helping a child put on a coat, providing a snack, or assisting in solving a problem) they are acting in service. Serving children teaches them to serve others.

Steps to Help Determine a Child's Primary Love Language

• Observe how a child expresses love to you and others. Children will likely express love in the language they desire most to receive.
• Listen to what a child asks for most often. Children ask for what they most want. If a child often wants to share a story with you, he may need quality time or your undivided attention.
• Notice what upsets a child. Rather than directly asking for something, children may complain about what they are not receiving from you.
• Give a child a choice between two options. This is the most challenging process to use at church. It takes time. A teacher might say, "Would you like me to sit with you or help you find the song in the hymnal?" This is a choice between quality time and acts of service. Recording the choices over a period of several weeks will allow you to notice if a pattern emerges.

You may not be able to use every language every week, but as you use them, the love languages will help children feel loved, secure, and happy at church. Love will be a part of the spiritual foundation you lay in the lives of children. Prayerfully consider how you can speak love to children in ways that will help them feel loved.