Love Languages: Acts of Service

This is the Love Language that I am least likely to hear or speak. I’m just not wired for it. But for anyone who is, they will instantly know how powerfully they hear “I love you,” when someone does an act of service for them. For these Acts of Service people, coming home to find their room has been vacuumed, or their clothes have been folded and put away is a huge love gift. Hearing the words, “Here, let me do that for you,” can pump emotional oxygen into their world. Running the vacuum, or washing their car, or cleaning the cat litter box for them probably seems like a meaningless activity to anyone who doesn’t speak Acts of Service as their primary love language. But to the Acts of Service person, they hear love and affection when you do these things for them.

This sounds like a pretty good deal. I mean, who can’t run the vacuum? Cleaning the cat litter or picking the dog do up in the back yard doesn’t cost a cent. The recipient of this activity doesn’t even have to be present when you do it, so there’s no confining time-frame to work within. You can make the bed or fold the clothes on your schedule, not theirs.

All this is true, and it’s an appealing part of responding in the Acts of Service language. But here’s something that you need to file away. Not every act of service is equal. There are times when a very small act of service will communicate a very big message of love. And then there are times when that same act of service will almost go unnoticed. Here’s the key: As with all the other love languages, Acts of Service are best spoken on the recipient’s terms, not the giver’s. In other words, just because you think you’d like it if somebody did a particular act of service for you, that doesn’t mean that your Acts of Service kid (or spouse) will. The key question is, “what would they like?” Not, “what do I want to do for them,” or “what would I like if someone did it for me?”

If you’re having trouble thinking of meaningful Acts of Service, sit down with a piece of paper, or at your computer, and start making a list of things you’ve ever heard your kid or spouse express thanks for when you’ve done them. Any special meals? Any way you’ve been able to do something for them that they somehow told you was good for them? Anything you did for them so they didn’t have to worry about it or bother with it that they said made a difference for them? Create your list and add to it. If your list is small, don’t worry about that. Add things that you think might work, and then be experimental with them. See if your idea rings their chime. If it doesn’t, take it off the list. If it does, keep it on the list, and work the list all the time.

A word of caution is in order here. If you’re an Acts of Service person, you’ll find gratification in doing acts of service for your kids (and spouse). And we all keep doing things we get gratification from. But sometimes the good things we do for other people are just a breath away from being what psychologists call “negative enabling.” If my act of service makes you more dependant on me, it might be “negative enabling.” If I’m doing your work for you, instead of letting you do the things you should do for yourself so you’ll grow and develop your personal responsibility muscles, I’m getting into “negative enabling” land. Offering an Act of Service as an expression of love isn’t wrong. But when a pattern of me doing your work for you develops, there’s a problem. The rule on this that makes the best sense and works the best is never do for them what they need to do for themselves. Because if you do, you will steal from them the chance to grow into their God-given stewardship and responsibility for their life.

Adolescents usually will let you do for them anything you want to do, as long as it means they get out of working. Really. Some kids are that way… So when a kid starts acting entitled to an Act of Service, that’s when you might need to think about pulling the plug on the activity. For a while, at least. Identify what their secondary love language is, and go to work with it. But if the gratitude level dips dramatically, that’s a sign that the love message isn’t getting through. Sometimes it’s just a selfish part of the kid’s development.

Knowing when and how much to do for your kid or spouse whose love language is Acts of Service takes sensitivity and finesse. The good news is that God wants to make you wise (see James 1:5), and this includes wisdom to know how to speak your kid’s and/or spouse’s love language, and when to change your approach.

Love Languages: Gifts

Most everybody likes getting gifts. But people whose primary love language is Receiving Gifts get more from getting a gift than the gift. Don’t misunderstand this for simple selfishness or plane old materialism. For the one who has Receiving Gifts as their primary love language, what’s behind the gift is perhaps more important than what the actual gift is. They hear love when they receive a gift, because they’re hearing the thoughtfulness, care and effort that went into picking out the gift. In other words, they hear the meaning of the gift. The good news for the one giving the gift in this scenario is that the size and cost of the gift are secondary. The intangibles are much more important.

When your kid (or spouse) with the Receiving Gifts love language gets a well thought-out and carefully selected gift from you, they get a powerful message of love. They feel cared for and treasured. They notice the sacrifice required to find and get, and then give the gift. For them, this is part of the gift.

There’s an old story about a class of young children in a school in Africa who brought their teacher Christmas gifts. Each one put their gift on the teacher’s desk and heard her make affirming comments about the gifts, expressing her gratitude. (Hey, what do you think that would have done for a kid with Words of Affirmation as their love language?...) There was a wide assortment of trinkets and homemade items brought by the children. Finally, one boy in the class brought a beautiful sea shell and put it on the teacher’s desk.

“What a beautiful gift,” the teacher said. “We are a two-day journey inland from the sea. How ever did you get this wonderful shell for me?”

“I walked to the sea to get it,” the boy responded.

“Oh, my!” the teacher exclaimed. “You made that long journey?”

“The journey,” the boy said with a shy smile, “is part of the gift.”

That’s how it is with people who have Receiving Gifts as their primary love language. The journey is part of the gift for them. Like the boy in this story, they connect the journey and the gift. And it makes the message behind the gift even more powerful for them.

Often, people with this as their primary love language apply the same kind of time and effort into giving gifts as they are delighted by when they receive a gift. One of our daughters has Receiving Gifts as her primary love language. She agonizes over what is the just-right gift to give. She begins planning her Christmas gift-giving in July because she wants to communicate her love in the best possible way with the gifts she gives. I don’t ever expect to hear her say, “I’ll run in and pick a quick little gift…” For her, a “quick little gift” isn’t a gift at all, unless it’s been thought through and planned in advance so that the trip can be quick, but the gift still meaningful. You can see why, can’t you? If the gift is an expression of love, the more thoughtful it is, the clearer the “I love you” in it is.

Missing a Receiving Gifts person’s birthday, or anniversary, or throwing a hasty gift in their direction would all be disastrous. Everyday gestures are powerful, too. Their absence will create the same kind of emotional difficulty as a Words of Affirmation person not hearing affirming words, or a Quality Time person not having quality time with you. It will drain their emotional tank and leave them feeling unloved.

Love Languages: Quality Time

Quality Time people need your undivided attention. They need your undistracted presence. They’re less interested in what the activity might be when they’re with you, and way more interested in the fact that they had you for the time it took to do the activity. If you’re a Quality Time person, you’ll get this instantly. But if you’re not, it probably won’t make any sense to you.

Back in the 80’s there was an idea making the rounds that a few minutes of quality time with your kids were better than hours of not-quality time. In some ways, this is true. Twenty really golden minutes are, well, golden. But what isn’t true is that you can spend 20 quality minutes with your kid in 20 minutes. You can’t.

Quality is always a function of quantity. If you want 20 minutes of Quality Time with your kid(s), you may need an hour to get it. The other 40 minutes plow the ground for the 20 quality minutes you have with your kid. There’s no mathematical formula for it, but the principle is that you’ll always need more time than you think you need to get whatever amount of Quality Time you want to get or give. Count on it.

If your kid (or spouse) is a Quality Time person, distractions, postponements and failure to show up are huge dings and disappointments for them. They will feel hurt and disrespected if you commit (or they think you’ve committed) to do something or show up and give them time, and then you don’t make it. Even if you think you have a good reason (which you might have), they will still be hurt.

A phrase Quality Time people love to hear is, “Hey, I want to spend some time with you. When can we do that, and what would you like to do?”

Adolescents probably won’t fire off any fireworks when you say this to them. They may hardly even grunt. But if Quality Time is their love language, your request for time with them will open their heart. Give them time to think about it, and then come back with the same question. And then FOLLOW THROUGH. You can turn a huge deposit in their emotional bank – asking to spend quality time with them – into a huge withdrawal by failing to show up and follow through. DON’T COMMIT TO WHAT YOU WON’T SACRIFICE FOR. Follow through!

Love Languages: Words of Affirmation

There’s no particular order for the Five Love Languages, but let’s start where Dr. Chapman starts in the book, with Words of Affirmation.

The old saying, “Actions speak louder than words,” isn’t always true. For the child (or spouse) whose primary love language is Words of Affirmation, words will probably always speak louder than actions. Hearing positive, affirming, encouraging words is like gulping in emotional oxygen for a person with the love language of Words of Affirmation. But the opposite is true, too. When a Words of Affirmation person doesn’t hear these positive, affirming, encouraging words, it’s like someone’s standing on their oxygen line. Insults (even little ones) can leave them feeling deeply wounded, and can sometimes take a very long time to be forgotten.

But empty, fluffy positive, affirming and encouraging words won’t work, either. Insincere or meaningless affirmation is nothing more than flattery. And once a person discovers it’s only flattery, there’s nothing appealing about it. It will eventually become offensive to them. It’s like emotional cotton candy. There’s no substance to it. Just the initial happy taste. But when the taste is gone, there’s really nothing else left behind, except a hunger for something more. Most kids don’t know what that “something more” is. They can’t articulate that they feel it’s missing. Their subconscious emotional radar will stay up and active for what they think feels like something more, though. And when they come across it, they will be magnetically drawn to it, whether it’s really good for them or not.

Words of Affirmation that make a difference and feed a person’s soul are authentic and true. Hearing, “I love you,” is so important to every kid. But for the person who has Words of Affirmation as a primary love language, hearing why they are loved, or hearing what they are loved for can send them soaring.

If you discover that your kid is a Words of Affirmation person, here’s a suggestion: make a private list of “Ten Things I Love About You,” and work from that list every day, telling them why you love them. Things like, “I love your sense of humor. You crack me up!” Or “I love how you watch out for your little brother (or sister).” Or “I love that I don’t have to wonder what you’re thinking.”

You may sometimes have to really strain your brain to think of positive and encouraging things that are true about your kids. Let’s face it, there are seasons in a kid’s life when there just isn’t much positive happening. But if you’re willing to partner with God on this, He will help you see positive things that you might have missed. So ask Him for His help! It’s a request He wants to grant.

Notice that the suggestions I gave for Words of Affirmation aren’t huge things. I didn’t put, “I think you’ll one day be President of the United States,” on the list. Or, “Look out Michael Jordan! You’ll break his records.” The truth is, your kid isn’t likely to break Michel’s records, and they may not become a prominent political figure, let alone the President. Target character traits, not just behaviors for your list. This will help you tell your kid (and yourself) that your love for them isn’t conditional. In other words, you don’t love them only when they perform or behave in a certain way. You love them, period. Their behavior can’t ever change that. But when they demonstrate character development by their behavior, TELL THEM! Look for these character qualities in them, and encourage them by appreciating them. Do your best to find 10 things for this list, and then, over time, take it to 20 things, and work from it every day.

If you were raised in a home where compliments weren’t given, where the fear was that if people heard too many positive things about themselves, they’d get “the Big Head,” or become prideful, speaking your Words of Affirmation to your kids (and spouse) may be hard at first. Treat it like any other skill. You’ll get good at it by doing it. So do it, even if it sounds and feels odd at first. Trust God to help you grow in the skill of speaking Words of Affirmation.

Love Languages II

The biggest idea in the book is what I just shared – that people develop best when they know they’re loved, and that they know they’re loved when they hear it in language they understand.

Way back when I was a Youth Minister in Tulsa, OK, I was part of a team of youth guys who went to central Mexico with an organization called Christ In Youth, to be resource people for presentations at a Christian youth conference.  Before I left, I asked a girl in my youth group who was in Spanish III what would be a couple of Spanish phrases that I should know.  She gave me a couple, but the one I most remember was “¿Dónde está el baño,” which I’m sure you recognize as Spanish for “where is the bathroom?”

We got to the Mexico City Airport, and nature began to call.  Not shouting, just calling.  I thought, “Hey, this is a great time for me to try out my Spanish.”  So I went to a kiosk where an attractive young woman in an American Airlines uniform stood, waiting to help.  I stepped up and said, “¿Dónde está el baño?”  But you’d have to hear me say it in my thick Oklahoma accent to know why the American Airlines representative nearly fell down laughing before she spouted a clean and crisp Spanish reply to my question.  But her reply made no sense at all to me.  It was just a lot of rolled r’s and other staccato consonants that I couldn’t make any sense of. 

For some mysterious reason, the stress of this moment moved the simple call of nature up the scale to the urgent shout of nature.  “Oh, no,” I thought.  “I’m going to wet my pants in the Mexico City Airport…”

But the kind lady at the kiosk read the panic in my eyes and said in perfectly clear English, “Sir, the Men’s Room is just down the corridor and to your right.”  She was like an angel speaking in that moment.

If she had kept speaking in Spanish, I was toast (soggy toast).  She could have said it louder, or slower, or used more gestures.  She could have even chosen different words to communicate the location of the Men’s Room.  But as long as she said it in Spanish, it wouldn’t have mattered.  I was going to have my own personal international incident at the American Airlines kiosk as long as she kept telling me the Men’s Room location in Spanish. 

It wasn’t an intelligence issue, really.  She was obviously an intelligent enough young lady.  I’m a smart enough guy.  But as long as she spoke Spanish, I was going to wet my britches.  When she spoke a language I understood, I was bright enough to find the Men’s Room. 

Now, I hope you see the correlation between my experience at the Mexico City Airport and your attempts to communicate your love to your kids.  You can have all the love in your heart that a parent can have for their kid, but if your love language isn’t the same as your kid’s, and you keep speaking your own language, all they’re likely to hear is, “Blah, blah, blah.”  If that’s what they’re hearing, they won’t feel as loved as you want them to feel.  And when that happens, they won’t thrive.  People only thrive when they feel loved.  That’s just a rule of life. 

The problem is that most parents assume their kids have the same love language they have.  So they keep speaking in a love language that makes sense to them, but probably doesn’t connect with the kid(s).  The more they communicate in this love language, the less the kid seems to get it.  Frustration sets in for both the parent and the kid.  The result is anything but love growing.  In fact, it’s usually some kind of alienation.

But the other side of this coin is that when you know your kids’ love language, you can communicate your love to them in terms that they understand.  And when that happens, a host of good things will come out of it, including feelings of security and confidence (for both you and your kid), a more consistent sense of happiness, less conflict, and generally movement toward health and maturity in your relationship with them.

So every parent ought to be very interested in getting some kind of help figuring out what their kids’ love languages are.  And, by the way, if you go to work on this, in the process, you’ll learn what your spouse’s and your own love language is, too, which will produce some really powerful and positive results in your marriage.

A New Blog Series from Steve Thomas on The Five Love Languages

The Bible’s the only book that can totally change your life, but there are some other books with great biblical roots and godly principles that can have a profound effect on your life and the legacy of your family life. For my wife and me, The Five Love Languages fits on that bookshelf. Aside from the Bible, no book helped us parent our three girls well as much as Dr. Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages. We both wish we’d have known about the Love Languages when our kids were young, but we didn’t come across it until all three of our daughters were in high school.

One of the things that makes this book so good is its simplicity. As Debbie and I read through it, we realized this isn’t rocket science. It’s common sense, in language we could easily understand, with concepts simple enough that we could do something with them immediately. I call this “putting the cookies on the bottom shelf.” And believe me, finding these great cookies on the bottom shelf was a very big gift from God to us. And I think it will be to you, too.

Since the publication of the original book, other editions have been produced, including The Five Love Languages for Children, The Five Love Languages for Teenagers, and The Five Love Languages Singles Edition, and several other editions. Each of these succeeding editions flesh out the main principles of the original book and make interesting specific applications to a target group. The original book is still on the New York Times Bestseller list, which is no small thing, since it was first published in 1992. Millions of people have been influenced by Dr. Chapman’s simple concept that people develop best when they know they’re loved, and that they know they’re loved when they hear it in language they understand. You can order the book from the link below.

http://www.canyonechobookstore.com/product.asp?sku=9780802473158

The Space Between: A Parent's Guide To Teenage Development - Part 7

Growing up I earned the nickname “20 questions” from my grandpa. It was not uncommon for me to bombard individuals with tons of questions at the conclusion of their stories and statements. Many interpreted this as me trying to antagonistically bother people. Though that might have been true at times, it was not the norm. Most of the time I wasn’t trying to be a punk. I was curious. I wanted to know things and to know if the things I believed were really were true. Even to this day I’m a tenacious learner and ask tons of questions trying to figure things out.

Almost every teenager I know can be called “20 questions.” Muller affirms this when he writes that teenagers, “Armed with a new found ability to think, evaluate, and solve problems, teenagers often question the values and beliefs they’d previously accepted.” (Muller, pg. 84). I couldn’t agree more with this statement. When this takes place many parents, especially in my experience Christian parents, seem to panic. Their panic is not irrational. I can understand the panic that takes place when a child questions a value, belief, or ideal that we hold dearly. My hope for my children is that they worship the God of the Bible, and what I need to prepare myself for now is the probability of them questioning their beliefs. Many students are not simply questioning their beliefs just because they want to be rebellious, but rather this is a sign of them owning their faith.

It is in these moments that I found ultimate joy in God’s complete control over all things. We are called to lead, shepherd, and point our children toward Jesus Christ. Yet, I know that there is nothing I can do to force my children into a relationship with Christ. “Salvation is from the Lord ((Jonah 2:9),” not from us. In these moments I would like to remind you, as well as myself, of a profound statement by Muller. He was writing about a tough period in which one of his children was making some poor choices. During that time he discovered “God was working in ways we wouldn’t always see or understand.” (Muller, pg. 87)

Spiritual growth is a process, and as parents we must be patient with students when they question things. Many of us can remember times in which we also questioned some of the same issues our teens are questioning. In those moments share your story, struggle, and pain. Talk about the goodness of God and what he taught you through that time of questioning. I would encourage you to write down their questions and together study the scriptures to find answers. In this you will find God growing you both. There I see “God working” in both of your lives.

Check out this video from Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham's grandson. It may be an encouragement to some of you.