"5 Love Languages of Children" is for anyone NOT from Planet Earth!

I tend to read a LOT of parenting books in the hopes of finding some golden nuggets that may help me raise my boys in the best way possible. Being the mother of a particularly "spirited" child, I often find it difficult to meet all of his needs. I picked up this book in the hopes that it would help me find the best way to express my love to him, especially on his most "spirited" days.

"The Five Love Languages of Children", by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell is 224 pages in a very easy-to-read format. The writing is very simple and straightforward, and I almost felt UNDER-challenged while reading it. Quite frankly, I was downright bored.

The whole premise behind the book is that there are five "languages" we speak to express love: Physical Touch, Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Gifts, and Acts of Service. Each person has one "primary" language that they prefer, and the goal is to figure out what your child's primary language is and then begin "speaking" to him or her in that language. This supposedly helps your child feel secure and have good self-esteem.

The book cautions that parents should not expect to figure out the primary love language of a child under the age of five. This is supposedly difficult because the child's love language is "rarely clearly seen", so you should just speak all five. Well, my son is only three and his love language is so obvious it might as well be a neon sign on his forehead. I didn't even need the book to figure it out, since I knew what his primary language was before I even picked up this book.

I do appreciate the authors mentioning that we must be careful to express love in ALL five ways, even though each person has a primary preference. I believe this is EXTREMELY important, and perhaps not mentioned enough in this book. After all, even if your child's primary language is Words Of Affirmation and you say, "You're great, I love you," but then you don't bother to SHOW it, the poor kid is getting horribly mixed messages.

Honestly, I was disappointed by this book and it didn't help me at all. You DON'T need this book to figure out your child's primary language. I got this book hoping that it would give me ideas as how to best express that language, but the authors failed me there.

The chapter that I was most interested in was chapter 8, "Discipline And The Love Languages". Here the authors presented an interesting idea that the worst punishment is using a form of discipline that is directly related to your child's love language. For example, if your child depends mainly on Physical Touch and you discipline by spanking, you are defeating yourself as a parent. Or if your child focuses on Words of Affirmation and you tend to scold with critical, harsh words, you are making your child feel rejected and wholly unloved. This chapter was all-too brief, and did not go into nearly enough detail for my tastes. I would have appreciated a greater discussion of which types of discipline are best suited to each particular primary language, but the authors just sort of skate over that.

In summary, although this is a decent book with a few good ideas, I felt that a lot of it was "filler" or "fluff", the sort of thing that most people can figure out on their own without the aid of a book. Most of it was just really obvious stuff. The few ideas and suggestions that would have been most helpful were not discussed in nearly enough detail, and the book also suggests that you check out the authors' other books on love languages in marriage and teenagers. How convenient! I personally don't feel that you need to read all 3 books to figure out how to speak a primary love language to someone. Unless you have a REALLY thick skull...

I just don't feel that this book has enough benefits to recommend to anyone. When we have "experts" telling us "the best way" to love our children, we need to become concerned with the state of our world!

The Chapters In This Book:
Introduction: Speaking Your Child's Language
1. Love Is The Foundation
2. Love Language #1: Physical Touch
3. Love Language #2: Words of Affirmation
4. Love Language #3: Quality Time
5. Love Language #4: Gifts
6. Love Language #5: Acts Of Service
7. How To Discover Your Child's Primary Love Language
8. Discipline And The Love Languages
9. Learning And The Love Languages
10. Anger And Love
11. Speaking The Love Languages in Single-Parent Families
12. Speaking The Love Languages In Marriage
Epilogue: Opportunities
For further Reading
Action Plan For the Five Love Languages Of Children