The five love languages have been on my radar since I was single. I've taken quizzes and been to seminars. Last year I borrowed the original from the library for couples. I had a crazy hard time getting into it and I never finished.
The children's version entered my tbr in 2003 when my oldest was like 2.5. She was a different toddler/baby. She was hard to motivate and was not particularly affectionate. She's six now and still squirms away from hugs and kisses. I believe in love languages because of my experiences with her.
I discovered her language pretty early in the book, but I kept reading because this book is so much easier and simpler than the original for me. This book has value beyond my life as a mother. This book helps break down different methods of communication for all. While I will never touch strangers, I can use the methods to express care and appreciation for those around me in my other relationships.
Fantastic book with great ideas! Highly recommend to all with AND without kids. This world could always use some more open minds and better communication.

أحلم بيومٍ يستطيع فيه كل اﻷطفال أن يكبروا في بيوتٍ مليئةٍ بالحبّ واﻷمان ، حيث يمكن لطاقاتهم النامية أن توجّه إلى التعلّم والخدمة بدﻻً من اﻻلتماس والبحث عن الحب الذي لم يجدوه في المنزل
هذا الكتاب يساعد في أن يصبح الحلم حقيقة للعديد من اﻷطفال ، ويساعد على بناء عﻻقات أسرية مستقرة ، وتطبيق قواعده تؤدي بالضرورة لنشوء مجتمع سليم عن طريق اﻻعتناء باﻷسرة ،من اصغر فرد فيها حتى اﻷب واﻷم ، والتي هي الأساس لمجتمع متوازن وقويّ

Truly valuable time spent with this book. I didn’t necessarily agree with it all, and some of it was very one-dimensional, but that’s a big part of reading any parenting book - you have to be ready to read about things you may not like or agree with, and it doesn’t mean it’s wrong. For me, I spent that time thinking about what my kids need from their dad, and at times I thought about what I need and needed as a child. It’s interesting to me that I can re-parent myself through parenting my own kids. So, in the end, everyone grows.

Really makes you think about what your child needs regarding their love tank. I feel as if I’ve gained some insight into the reason my children act the way they do at times. A lot of good information and recommendations I plan to put to the test.

In the Evangelical tribe I grew up in, The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman provided the idiom to talk about how each us receive and give love. Because of our unique personalities and family of origin, we each have modes of expressing love which is particularly meaningful to us. For some it words of affirmation. Others feel particularly loved when you spend quality time with them. Giving and receiving gifts is another ‘love language.’ Others feel loved through physical touch or acts of service. My love language is gift giving (so keep them coming ;P ). Chapman’s original book has helped countless people understand their own love needs and how to best express love to their mates (and other loved ones) whose ‘love language is often different from their own.

I don't typically read ‘spin-off’ books. The fact that there is a Love Language book for singles, men, children, teenagers etc, seems a little too much like “Chicken Soup for the Cat-Lover’s Soul.” It is more of a marketing ploy than something you expect to say something new. But then I am the father of three very different children and thought that The 5 Love Languages of Children would provide me with some insights on how to love my children well. I was pleasantly surprised by what I read inside. This is a great book.

While Gary Chapman and his co-author, Ross Campbell, M.D., say that it is impossible to identify a primary love language for kids under the age of five, and warns that love languages can change at various stages, I gained some appreciation for the uniqueness of my three year old needs and some understanding of my five year old. My two-year-old son is still a mystery.

Chapman and Campbell devote the first half of this book to describing the five love languages and how to recognize them in your children. In the last half of the book they describe how to discipline children, foster learning and help children manage their anger by responding to them in ways which ‘fill their love language’ when we give direction or correction. They also discuss some of the unique challenges of responding to a child’s love language for single-parent families and how modelling love languages in marriage helps your children.

This is a quick read with a lot of insight. Every involved parent loves their children (hopefully!); however not every child feels their parent’s love. This book helps parents understand their children and offers sage advice on how to nurture them in love. My oldest daughter seems to have a primary love language of Quality Time and loves it when you spend time with her. My almost four year old, I would guess has a preference for acts of service. She loves it when you do things for her in a way that her independent older sister never did. This helps me respond with greater patience when she has me help her with something she is quite capable of. And of course Chapman and Campbell also encourage parents to nurture your children to express each of the love languages to others.

But the most important chapters for me would be the chapters on discipline, learning and managing anger. My kids are unique with different personalities and I have learned that what works with one kid will not work with the others. Certainly there is a lot I still need to discover about my children but like the original Love Languages book, this gives me some words to talk about it.

I recommend this book to parents. It may be a spin-off but it delievers the goods. I give this book four stars. : ★★★★☆

Thank you to Moody Publishers for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for this fair and honest review.

This book was lovely and helpful, but a little too formulaic.

Considering your kids’ love language, and spending time trying to figure out what it is, while speaking all 5 languages to be sure and fill their love tank is necessary and extremely beneficial! This book has good practical tips for doing so, and I’m very glad I read it.

But it was too simple. The author seemed to be saying that if you speak your child’s primary love language daily, they won’t have emotional or behavioral problems. It just didn’t seem to account for sin or other hardships, despite the author being a Christian.

At the end there is a chapter on anger that I didn’t like, it was overly simplified and some of his family-wide scenarios where everyone is misbehaving and angry I did not agree that simply speaking each others love language to every member of the family was the solution.

Still, even if other sin or hardships are going on, it is trie that lavishing ones family in love in the way they primarily prefer to receive love would be helpful and a lubricant to help work tward peace.

So I would say what he has to say about love languages, good! But what he has to say about emotions, hm not so good, go read “untangling emotions” for that.

I hadn't considered raising children with this in mind until I read this book. The love language principles that everyone is familiar with can be used on caring for children. Try to identify what gets them excited. What makes them respond the best: words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, physical touch, or gift giving. Look for what makes them happy when you give it to them and what makes them upset when it's denied. I wound up asking my kids what I do that makes them know I love them and what I do that makes them sad. My older kid's language is definitely quality time with some words of affirmation. The younger one is physical touch with words of affirmation.

Keep their language in mind when you need to express your love and especially when you need to correct and discipline. They will be much more receptive and know that you still love them if you use their love language to talk to them. For my older one he will probably feel betrayed and unloved if I lock him alone in his room- because then he is denied quality time which makes him feel loved. I find that he calms down much faster during a meltdown if I sit with him and have a little quiet time with him so he knows I'm on his team. For the other child I usually need to hold her during a meltdown and if I'm holding her she'll usually snap out of it after a minute.

Este a doua lectură scrisă de Gary Chapman pe care eu o citesc. Curios lucru, și în 2022, cartea cu numărul 4 pe care o terminasem de citit a fost “Cele cinci limbaje ale iubirii pentru cei singuri”, scrisă de același autor. În timp ce compuneam această recenzie m-am gândit la aspectul acesta. Ce tare!
La fel ca prima întâlnire cu autorul, și aceasta a fost una calitativă, productivă și fructuoasă. Am reținut aspecte importante și, deși încă nu am copii, niciodată nu e prea devreme ori prea târziu să înveți să-i cunoști, să-i apreciezi, să-i înveți și să te porți cu ei.
Desigur că s-au mai repetat informații din prima lectură; ba chiar și în această carte, autorul a repetat de multe ori aceeași informație, poate pentru a fi înțeleasă mai bine.
Lectura pune accentul pe cele cinci limbaje ale iubirii (timpul acordat, cuvintele de încurajare, darurile, serviciile și mângâierile fizice) și se concentrează exclusiv pe copii. Cu alte cuvinte, învață părinții cum să descopere principalul limbaj de iubire al propriilor copii. Desigur că nu este suficientă numai teoria, așa că autorul vine cu soluții și exemple concrete. Exact asta apreciez eu tare mult la cărțile lui: nu expune numai teorie, numai cum ar trebui să fie, ci vine cu exemple concludente, multe chiar, din care fiecare poate alege ce îi este necesar.
Vă recomand cele două lecturi, eu chiar voi mai citi și altele de la autor. Probabil cartea cu numărul 4 parcursă în 2026 va fi tot una a lui Gary Chapman. Ar fi chiar amuzant!

This book is garbage.

I really liked this book. It is one I would like to buy and be able to reference.

Ug. Useful but yuk.
I probably could have skipped the second half of the book and been much happier and still gotten everything out of it.

There was much in here that was so awful. But at the same time? I love the framework and it’s really useful to me.
So I’m glad to have read it. And it really does help me in life with family and just generally with people I love.

But... a bit of a rant. After this read I need a palate cleanser for all the conservative, pro-spanking, it’s-ok-for-boys-to-not-respect-sexual-girls bull crap. But then it came back with nice bits about being kind to others and using your anger instead of being mean and that’s lovely. But then it goes back on about the straw man history teacher who needs to be taught to not be mean to Christian icons (and openly personally insulting to students and even worse THEIR FAITH. Dun dun dun.). Apparently that’s a conservative stereotype of how teachers treat religion? Sigh. But then it’s nice that he’s supportive of single patenting and divorced parents. But... Though it’s nice that he switches between she and he pronouns for kids throughout don’t expect any mention of queer family of any type. I don’t think there was a stay home dad either. There were positive working women characters at least? I know you weren’t expecting any other pronouns. Neither was I. And I wasn’t even expecting queer people. Fine. Ok. Sure. A bit of casual sexism sprinkles? That’s baked into society. But who expects suggestions of corporal punishment mixed in with the suggestions to be kind?? Not me. Yuk. So, so very many parts made me feel unwelcome in this text. /endrant

So! I still recommend reading through chapter 6 or 7... then skipping the worst of the heavy handed “conservative” “Christianity.” I think the original book has less awfulness mixed in, but is more centered on romantic relationships. This one is nice in having more varied non romantic family love depictions and examples. Ymmv

The strengths of the book.
-It was great to have a review of the love languages, focusing specifically on children.
-Things that could be problematic were addressed: like all children wanting gifts, parents using gifts as bribes for behavior, older children manipulating their parents if told directly about the love languages.
-The baseline - you must show your child expressions of love in every "language", and your love should be unconditional - were repeated throughout.
-There were some really good ideas of ways to express each type of love language to a child, and ways to figure out which is theirs, if it's not quickly apparent.

The quibbles.
-If you know the love languages, the first part will be review.
-Some of the real life examples seemed made up.
-Some of the chapters in the second half made dire statements. I'm paraphrasing, with slight exaggeration, but - if you don't learn your child's love language, they will not be an emotionally mature adult and their life could be ruined. If you don't teach your child how to handle anger properly, they will not be able to maturely handle their anger as an adult and their life will probably be ruined. If you discipline using mainly punishment, they will withdraw emotionally from you and their life will be ruined. If you don't discipline enough...

I definitely took away a large helping of anxiety about ruining my children, but I'm glad I read it just for the reminder and new ideas of ways to show love to my children. I sometimes forget to be expressive. Even if I never fully figure out their love language, our lives will be mutually enriched by all the extra showing AND telling them that I love them.