The 5 Love Languages of Children (Part 1 of 2)

Jul. 13, 2020 – In this episode the girls discuss the book "The 5 Love Languages of Children" by Gary Chapman and how it can help us to connect more with our children and be a better parent overall. They open the show with a little bit of background on the Love Language books - sharing how they first learned of them and how they've helped their relationships. They then move on to discussing general themes throughout the book including "the love tank" and "unconditional vs. conditional love". The girls break these points down and apply them to their own parenting practices and chat candidly on how they can do better. They then discuss the message of hope that they felt from this book - and how there isn't some great process of healing that needs to happen in order to correct our parenting paths. But instead, that this method requires you to just assess your child's love language and mindfully apply it throughout the day to ensure they FEEL the love that you're showing them. Before the girls dive into the specific love languages they first share what they think theirs are personally. What's your love language? Do you know yet? Sarah and Lauren point out how they feel love and how they feel its impacted their longtime friendship. They then dive into discussing each love language in depth - starting off with PHYSICAL TOUCH. Sarah opens up that discussion sharing the results of infant studies that have been done regarding the impact that physical touch has on infant development (spoiler alert: it's super important!) The girls share personal stories of how they interact with their own children and how it evolves from the early infant years to when they're older. Lauren recognizes that her oldest son might be reaching out to her in ways and the girls even discuss how important it is for dad to be involved. They discuss the important role Dad has in their children's lives and how it might require a conscious effort for them to physically be affectionate with their children as they grow older. They then close the topic by giving specific examples of how you can implement Physical Touch with your children. The next love language discussed is WORDS OF AFFIRMATION. Both Lauren and Sarah share that their primary love language is Words of Affirmation. Sarah further breaks down this topic into specific categories and the girls discuss specific examples of how you an implement each (these categories including Words of Affection and Words of Praise). They discuss the power words can have and how we can do damage with our words if this is our child's primary love language. They then discuss the next love language, QUALITY TIME and how some of their children very much speak this language. They share signs that they've seen in their day-to-day lives where they are begging to spend quality time with them, but how they haven't stopped to met that need (because they instead just dismissed it as them being needy or high maintenance). They then discuss how as your children get older it will be required of the parent to go to the child and immerse yourself in their interests in order to provide opportunities for quality time. They provide specific examples of how this can be implemented (especially with older children and teens). They close up this love language by discussing Quality Conversation and how this is deeply important to children how primarily speak this love language. **Due to time the girls will continue discussing the other 2 love languages in the next episode of The Mom Voice - in addition to breaking down how you can discover your child's love language. So make sure to Subscribe to the show and stay tuned for that!**   Closing the show with their hits and misses, Sarah shares her hit of reducing her Diet Coke intake and Lauren's miss of keeping the dang car clean! They hope this episode hopes to inspire all you mamas out there - we're all in