Loving your child the way they need to be loved

With Valentine’s Day coming right up on Friday, it is the perfect time of year for parents to take stock of our own children, and to think about how we can love them juuuuuust a little better. When we live with any person, even a young child, our interactions often become routine, and we can easily forget to interrogate our connections by considering how to improve them. Connecting with our beloved little cherubs probably feels quite natural to many of us, but even parents and their children have personality differences, and developmental periods where the dynamic feels a bit more difficult. I hope you’ll read on regardless, but if you’re looking for a way to strengthen your connection with your child, this week’s newsletter may feel especially helpful!

If you ask me, when it comes right down to it, ECFE is all about strengthening connections, both with our children and with our parenting communities, so there are loads of resources I could pull from here to share even more tips (reach out to me if you’re looking for something specific). Today, though, I want to focus on two of Cupid’s favorites that feel especially applicable to this theme of loving children the way they, as individuals, need to be loved. Getting curious about your own child’s experience of the world, and of love, is the first step!

First, many of you have heard about Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. Like Valentine’s Day, this concept was first, and has traditionally been applied to, romantic love. At ECFE, we’re glad that Dr. Chapman took his work and adapted it to children as well. You can read his book on the topic, or take a look at any number of online resources, including this simple chart (and following list of wonderful ways to teach little ones about love), and this short article that walks you through how to learn about, and use, your own child’s love language to build a stronger connection with them.

Second, Georgetown University’s Center for Child and Human Development has a wonderfully fast, free, and personalized online temperament quiz that I wish all parents with young children would take! They don’t even ask for your email! This tool allows parents to learn about temperament, then compare their own traits to those of their child (choose the quiz for infants or toddlers based on your child’s age), and finally provides a short, personalized report suggesting ways to support your child, and your relationship with them. Learning about temperament traits, taking the quiz, and reading the results will take you less than 10 minutes.

Thinking of great ways to reconnect with your child based on the results will provide a lifetime of benefits. Give it a try today!