Love Tanks - Full, Empty, Overflowing

Hey children, I had been parenting you or rather loving you the way I thought you’d like to be loved. But I realised I got it all wrong after reading The 5 Love Languages of Your Family. No wonder it had been trying, tiring and tough at times. I hadn’t hit the sweet spot.

Parenting is just like cooking. You need the right ingredients to cook up a [delicious] storm.

Faye‘s first two love languages are Receiving Gifts and Physical Touch. For the record, I never buy her gifts. I feel that she has way too many of everything especially over Christmases and Birthdays. I also thought Physical Touch was ranked at the bottom of her list because she doesn’t like to be patted to sleep or hug us goodbye at school drop-off. 

But after asking her questions in the profiling test like “Would you rather a hug or mommy to say you are Terrific?”, she came back high on Touch. Then I saw it all. 

She likes to be carried and be held close, she prefers sitting on daddy’s lap to eat her meals than sitting alone in the high chair, she takes comfort from sleeping on top of my body feeling the rise and fall of my breaths and she is always running/rushing to hold my hand when we are out shopping, playing, walking, anything. 

These things fill her love tank and I haven’t been giving her enough. Sometimes my hands are full and I cannot hold her hand. Sometimes I get a vibration in my pocket and I let go of her hand to read my unimportant message. Sometimes I prefer she sat alone to eat than on me because I want to enjoy my meals too.

But when love tanks are empty, that’s when the child gets “difficult”. The worst thing a child could experience, whose love language is Physical Touch, is to get rejection from touch itself. 

When she is stubborn, I will not relent to her tantrums. I know if I did, she would climb all over my head. She could cry for an hour and I would work with her on her apology the whole hour without touching her. My exact words because I wanted to be authoritative, “Stop crying first before I hug you.” 

Oh dearie me. Why am I putting conditions to Love? I read that there’s no such thing as spoiling a child with unconditional love but the effects of conditional love is detrimental. 

Now that I know her needs, we will hug first before all talk and discipline. 

Yesterday Faye had been “difficult” and I targetted her with Physical Touch. After that, I solved the problem way faster than the one hour fight we normally endure! 

By speaking your child's own love languages, you can fill his emotional tank with love. When your child feels loved, he is much easer to discipline and train than when his emotional tank is running near empty" 

- Gary Chapman

Ewan shocked me with his results. He is high on Quality Time and Words of Affirmation. Where is Physical Touch when I thought it should be top of his list? The profiling test showed that it is back on number 5. 

He is touchy! Always interlocking his hand in mine, always caressing my fingers and always needing a family group hug. I assumed his first on the list should be Physical Touch and been showering him with huge dosages of it. Like Chapman, I believe boys need physical affection too especially from their dads [not just moms].

Boys and girls alike need physical affection, yet young boys often receive less than young girls... some parents feel that physical affection will somehow feminize a boy. Of course, that is not true. The fact is that the more parents keep the emotional tank full, the healthier the child's self-esteem and sexual identity will be. 

- Gary Chapman

Then I looked back on everything about him with regards to Quality Time and Words of Affirmation and saw the light at the end of the tunnel. 

He insists that everyone should travel together - no mom and 妹 trips or dad and 哥 trips. He vocalised that the best trip is when all four are together. That’s Quality Time. He likes it when daddy and mommy puts him and Faye to bed together in one bedroom. That’s Quality Time. He demands daddy, mommy and 妹 to watch him at 武术 class for 90 minutes and we cannot leave his sight because he wants us there with him. That’s his version of Quality Time. 

And I haven’t been exactly very generous with Words of Affirmation either. You know how people hold back praises and encouragements when someone does good but is quick to acknowledge faults when someone does bad? That’s the exact opposite of Affirmation and acknowledging faults more than praises is devastating for children whose love language is Words of Affirmation. 

I yell a lot more than I did before. This have to change because I realise my children are yelling a lot after I started. At the end of a screaming session, I always feel drained and sometimes break down into tears. Chapman shared about a child's feelings in the chapter Words of Affirmation, "My parents are yelling and screaming at me, telling me not to yell and scream. They expect me to do something they have not learned to do. It's unfair."

I tell you. I had been practicing calm voices for a week now. A promise I told Ewan and Faye to keep and I will lead them by example. It is reaping positive results! Just today at nap time, Faye suddenly told me, "Good Job!" I asked her what the praise was about? And she said, "For not screaming for so long."

My love language is Words of Affirmation and her saying that out of nowhere, targeted right to the heart of my love language! She’s really mature for her age and I think it is because she is very clear of what she wants and being a second child, an observer. 

I explained to Ewan whenever he goes into the initial state of outburst that I was also boiling inside. I felt like Wolverine waiting to show his blades but I kept my fire inside and controlled. I told him I kept it inside and not let it come out because I care. Sharing this with him acknowledges his exact feeling at that moment. He felt understood and he had been trying his best ever since although he still needs to be reminded. Have I seen any difference from Ewan and Faye in this regard? Yes. 

The greatest enemy of encouraging children is anger. The more anger the parent harbours, the more anger the parent will dump on their children. This result will be children who are both antiauthority and anti-parent. This naturally means that a thoughtful parent will do all in his or her power to assuage anger - to keep it to a minimum and to handle it maturely.

- Gary Chapman

Of course, we cannot praise too frequently too because our words will have little positive effect. Oh this is tiring work because keep my cool is harder than going into an outburst. However, if I want to prevent problems such as resentment, feelings of being unloved, guilt, fear and insecurity for my teenage children, I have to start now by putting Love As The Foundation. The most basic ingredient.

Hell yes we all love our children to world's end but they will not feel loved if their tanks are not filled. Only as we give our children unconditional love will we be able to understand them and deal with their behaviours. 

Always learning as parents. But now I understand - my children are not difficult to deal with. It’s just that I haven’t been filling their love tanks correctly and approaching the problems with the wrong parenting style.

While we are at it, do not forget to fill the love tanks of our spouses too.

Links:
Children Love Language Profiling Test
Couples Love Language Profiling Test
Singles Love Language Profiling Test

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A stay at home mum, blogging to widen her social life. 

We want to echo the sound of love through our lives to inspire other mothers alike.