Love Languages for the Family
Posted on June 16, 2020 by Ben Brown, One of Thousands of Life Coaches on Noomii.
This article explores how using the love languages assessment in a family setting can be just powerful as being used in a romantic partnership.
The Power of Love Languages in a Family setting
There is no shortage of self-help books, youtube videos, and other tools out there to help us as a society in the world personal development. But one of the areas that often gets over looked is in the realm of having healthier families. And as such, there’s often a lack of tools in that arena to be explored and utilized. Where to turn? Well, one of the more powerful places I’ve found a richness of resources for Family Relationships is from the areas of Romantic Relationships. One of the most powerful tools often used in Romantic Partnerships that I’ve used to help guide families is known as “The Love Languages” assessment. In this article, I’d like to demonstrate a story of one particular family that learned how to use the Love Languages to create a more powerful relationship between a Father and his Son.
When I first met Peter, he spoke of his strained relationship with his Dad as one of the key struggles he was looking for assistance with. As I began to get to know Peter, early on in our coaching relationship, I observed how much Peter craved and enjoyed conversation that went deeper in nature and revolved around themes of philosophy, history of the world and the “meaning of life” among other things. On the other hand, as I began to get to know William, Peter’s Dad, I quickly observed that William had little interest in or capacity for the “deeper conversations.” Through the motivational interviewing process, I learned that William had spent a number of buying no shortage of gifts for his son Peter, in an effort to earn his affection. You can see where this is going can’t you?
Enter the Love Languages Assessment! I had both Peter and William take this assessment and reviewed their results. For those of you who are not familiar, this assessment was designed originally as a tool for romantic partnerships in which it breaks down our “5 love languages” into order of importance. A love language is simply a form of “being shown love” that allows to feel like we are getting our needs met. The five languages are the following…
Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Acts of Service and Gifts
But here’s the catch! Most people only ever look at the languages they need to experience in order to feel “loved” and very rarely look at the languages they are “naturally givers with and or are good at showing.” Sometimes, there is overlap. For instance, I personally enjoy and need “words of affirmation” to feel like I’m getting my needs met. But I’ve learned over the years that while “acts of service” aren’t prime ways that I feel the need to be shown love, I’ve come to discover that I’m naturally a “acts of service” kind of guy in a very natural way! For example, when my partner’s father was diagnosed with cancer, from that day forward, every single night for the next year, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, I had a hot meal waiting on her when she walked through the door…Every. Single. Night. This was one of the easiest ways that I could show her love and make her life a bit easier. So sometimes, we’re able to tap into using a love language well, even though its not an important one for us to receive.
Which brings us back to Peter and William. When I had them take the assessment, as it turns out, Peter’s top love language was Quality Time and his bottom language (which was a big fat goose egg…notta, zilch, zero…didn’t even register on the list)…was gifts. Fast forward over to William and wouldn’t you know it, his top language was Gifts! Many of us are naturally inclined to assume that we should lead with the language we need most or are best at! In this case, William was frustrated and couldn’t understand why his efforts “weren’t enough”. In William’s case, because he truly enjoyed “receiving gifts,” he was hoping that Peter would enjoy it as much as he did. It was here that I was able to illustrate to William that it had nothing to do with his efforts “being enough” as much as it had EVERYTHING to do with the fact that they were simply not the efforts that Peter needed. Likewise, Peter had a hard time understanding why his Dad kept “buying him things” when all he really wanted was regular thoughtful conversation and meaningful “quality time.”
As these two men began to learn how to speak each other’s love languages, they’ve found ways to build a stronger relationship than they’ve ever had! William now takes dedicated quality time to spend with his son. They found a tea shop that they both enjoy going to, they sit in “their booth” every time when its available and have learned to create a weekly ritual they both look forward to that helps to serve their own love languages. Peter gets to feel fulfilled with William showing him quality time to have the richer conversations and William gets to feel fulfilled with Peter buying him the simple gift of a cup of tea a few times each week.
This has been an incredibly powerful tool for these two men to use. And as you might imagine, William’s relationship with his wife has improved, as his relationship with their son is no longer a source of stress but is instead a source of joy and gratitude in each of their lives!
If you’re feeling the stress in your family, don’t be afraid to look for tools in some unlikely places! With the help of a strong coach, you can use a variety of tools crafted for other arenas to help you navigate a variety of challenges and cultivate powerful change and arrive to high impact results that will last a lifetime.
