Love Languages
Because of the new site set up, this post should’ve been posted on February 10th, but the switch made things a little quirky.
With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, I thought it might be kind of fun to talk about love languages & ideas on how to love people well! I’ve always been fascinated by personality tests (& career quizzes, bless my middle school kids’ hearts lol) & of course, love language tests as well. (If you don’t know what your love language is, I’ll link a quick & easy test here). The five love languages are: acts of service, receiving gifts, physical touch, quality time, & words of affirmation. My top love language is quality time & my last one is physical touch. I think you can definitely have different love languages depending on the relationship. For example, maybe physical touch isn’t one between you & your girlfriends, but it is with your significant other. Keep scrolling to read some of the ideas I’ve come up with for each love language!
When we were younger, my parents took a class on the five different love languages. During their class, they focused on one love language each week & tested it out on each of us kids to see what we responded to the best. I think this idea of testing it out is brilliant & can help you see if the response matches the test! I’m linking to some different books here that are helpful.
Also, something to keep in mind… As humans, we most often SHOW love in the same way that we FEEL love. It’s important to keep in mind that just because you feel love that way, doesn’t mean that those you are trying to show love to, do too.
acts of service...
make someone’s lunch
start / scrape their car in the morning
pick up the house
clean up dinner / do the dishes all on your own
receiving gifts...
It’s important on this one, that you don’t include a note or anything, because the response you receive might be from the gift itself or from the words of affirmation in your note. When my parents did this, they left a gift on each of our beds with no explanation at all. I’m going to share some cute ideas below for gift options!
cute floral cup (works just like a Yeti cup, but for only $10!!)
personalized beaded bracelets (mine say worthy & enough)
mini faux plant (darling + looks very realistic from all angles!)
thin black silk scrunchies (so good for your hair!)
succulent magnets (I have these on my mini fridge in my office -- so cute!)
capri blue volcano candle dupe (I've heard amazing things about this candle & just put it in my cart!)
beer can + bottle coozie in one (I got this for my Dad for Christmas & he's obsessed!)
physical touch...
Okay this one is pretty obvious. Offer an extra hug, pat on the back, hold hands or place your hand on their leg.
quality time...
be intentional about spending time with someone with no distractions
show them they are the most important thing in your life at that moment
go for a walk together
play a card game together (this one is super popular in my family)
words of affirmation...
Intentionally tell someone things you see that they are good at — you can do this by speaking the words or even writing them out (sharing some of the cutest cards I've ever seen below!!!)
One thing that I do for my middle school students is giving them a little birthday (or half birthday for our summer babies) gift. Each student gets a little stress ball with a hand written note from me saying something that I appreciate about them as a student or as a person. Just going to be honest, for some kids I have to dig a little deeper lol. But it's a nice way to be able to tell kids that I appreciate that they always give me their attention when I'm teaching classroom guidance, or that I notice that they're always the last one in because they're holding the door, or that I see them showing the new kid around on their first day. This targets both the receiving gifts love language & the words of affirmation love language. It's so interesting to me because some kids will tell me "thank you for the stress ball" & others tell me "thank you for the nice note". Overall, I'm just glad that I'm showing these kiddos a little bit of love that they all truly deserve!
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