Children and love languages...

I often find myself looking for answers as to why my kids do what they do. I picked up the book The Five Love Languages Of Children and some of my questions were answered.

My twins can be like night and day when it comes to personality. Mitchell lets you know that he loves you by drawing you pictures, lots of pictures. He "writes" letters and gives away his stuff so that he can show how much he cares. He was apparently filled with love when he decided to draw a mural on his closet door...



The photo is blurry but it shows Mitchell learning a lesson on where we are allowed to draw and cleaning up his messes. He is using a Magic Eraser and without veering too far off subject, let me say that these are wonderful! The colored pencil wiped off with absolutely no problem. I can remember scrubbing to try to remove crayon from walls when my oldest was younger. Not fun.

My point? If I didn't know Mitchell's love language I would have probably blown up over the drawing. He wasn't intentionally trying to ruin his door, he was showing his love. Obviously I don't allow him to draw on anything he sees fit but I was able to understand and calmly help him to understand why we don't do that.

Joshua shows his love through physical contact. He has to be near you. He sits on my lap, plays with my hair, climbs in bed with me in the morning and becomes glued to me. I am so not complaining. A couple of years ago and Joshua wanted no part of physical contact. In some ways that is the biggest change in him with the progress he has made concerning his Autism.

On days when I am overly busy and I don't have (or make) time for contact with Joshua I see a big difference in him. He is whiny and withdrawn. I work hard to build in a few minutes here and there for us to sit together so that he can show that he loves me and so that he feels my love too. This is one of those times...



I'm doing something in the bedroom and he is near by. He is especially happy because both myself and my husband are in the room. These are the moments that Joshua lives for.

As for my oldest. I'm just not sure. If I were to guess I would have to say he feels loved when he is 'receiving gifts'. He seems to show love in a variety of ways with no clear cut love language. Of course now that he is nearing 13 he seems to be changing daily. I'm going to try harder to figure this out.