Love Languages for Teens: Words of Affirmation

According to Dr. Gary Chapman, there are 5 Love Languages that we all speak. This concept is typically associated with couples and relationship counselling. However, our teenagers have their own love languages as well! Dr. Chapman believes that we all have one primary love language that communicates love to us stronger than the other four. As parents, our job is to find out what our teenagers love language is to ensure that our teens feel heard, understood, and loved.

Dr. Chapman identifies five love languages: 

Affirming words: words of affection, praise, encouragement
Acts of service: unconditional acts of love that your teen considers valuable
Quality time: undivided attention, spending time together
Gifts: giving and receiving gifts unconditionally
Physical touch: hugging, pats on the back, cuddling, massages

Take a moment to think about your teenager’s love language, and keep in mind that it may have changed over the years since they were a kid. If you feel unsure, think about how your teen expresses their love to you or their friends. How someone expresses their love is an indication of how they want to receive love. If you are still feeling unsure, talk to your teen, and introduce them to the concept of love languages. Ask them how they want to be recognized, what they want from their parents, or they can take the quiz: 

https://www.5lovelanguages.com/quizzes/teen-quiz/

I will be taking the time to talk about all the love languages. However, within this article, I will be focusing on Words of Affirmation. 

Offering Praise, Encouragement, and Loving Words

Words of Affirmation can look like praise, encouragement, and loving words. Praise includes recognizing your child’s skills and accomplishments, while encouragement includes building on your child’s strengths. Loving words include statements such as “I love you” and are also the underlying message to praising and encouraging statements when done authentically (Chapman, 2010) .

Praise can look like: “you did a great job on your math test”, “Thank you for unloading the dishwasher, it’s very helpful when you do that”, “I like your outfit today!”

Encouragement can look like: “I notice that your commitment to your extra-curricular. Your team/school is lucky to have you”, “You handled that situation so creatively”, “I am so proud of you”

Praising Efforts

If you are unable to praise the results, praise the effort (Chapman, 2010) . Let’s say your teenager cleans the bathroom, but it’s not as clean as you would have preferred. The mirrors are streaked and the toilet or sink isn’t as clean as you’d like. However, your teenager spent a solid hour on their day off cleaning this space- focusing on what they did wrong or correcting them in that moment will not be helpful for anyone and will most likely discourage your teenager from trying again (2010). Praising and acknowledging their efforts and the time they put into their task will make your teenager feel appreciated, motivated to complete this chore again, and open to guidance and instruction the next time (2010). 

Be Authentic and Specific

When speaking this language to your teen be sure to be authentic and specific. Teenagers are very good at noticing when others are being sincere or not. Offering words of affirmation that are not genuine can feel insulting and be hurtful to your teen (Chapman, 2010). Avoid offering any words of affirmation if you are unable to be genuine. Additionally, be specific when praising or encouraging your teenager. A broad statement such as “you did a good job cleaning the kitchen” won’t resonate as well as, “the stove looks so clean, thank you”, “I see that you put a lot of effort into organizing the cupboard, this will be so helpful in the mornings!”, or “Taking out the garbage was a huge help.” (2010). 

If you or your teen want more information about love languages, or if you want to help strengthen the bond between yourself and your teenager then contact me to find a time to connect. The next love language to be discussed in this blog series is physical touch, stay tuned!

References:

Chapman, G. D., Dr. (2010). 5 Love Languages of Teenagers: The Secret to Loving Teens Effectively. Chicago, IL: Northfield Publishing.