5 love languages for teens

Adult Sunday school is studying the 5 Love Languages for Teens by Gary Chapman. I have gotten so much out of his books and highly recommend them. I've blogged about this before here, here and here.

Yesterday I found a brief assessment (http://www.selectsmart.com/FREE/select.php?client=5lovelanguages) to figure out what adult's love languages are and decided to try it on my littles. Bear and Bob had to be asked questions repeatedly and really ended up taking the test twice. There are 6 people in my family and 5 love languages. We only repeated one! Five different primary love languages! No wonder this is so hard!

I read and explained the questions to Kitty and Ponito. Ponito's came out just as expected. Physical touch is his main love language. This does not surprise me at all. Ponito is my cuddler! He has to be tucked in at night with hugs and kisses... lots of kisses. Nose kisses give you bonus points. He gets awfully sneaky trying to kiss my nose!

Whenever he needs love he climbs in my lap or better yet, drapes his entire body on me (see picture). He spontaneously hugs and kisses me all the time. Physical touch is not my love language, but he speaks it so fluently it is truely a language of love and I know he loves me. I do not think I could have made it this far without my cuddlebunny. I don't know what I'm going to do if he becomes a cranky teen.

Kitty's love language is Receiving Gifts. Aargh! This is the love language that always come out last of the five for both Hubby and I. We just don't get it. It feels like the person is being selfish and greedy. Just not how we were raised at all. Actually that's not totally true, I think my Dad's love language is gifts. Probably one reason we had trouble communicating.

Bob had to take the test twice. I'm still not sure if she answered it accurately. It said her love language is Acts of Service. In other words she feels loved if someone is doing something for her. This isn't a bad language to have in our house. Grandma (who watches the kids during the day) and I both have the same love language, Words of Affirmation. This means we need praise and being told we are loved and appreciated. My mom taught me the best way to get praise and appreciation is to do things for others (Acts of Service!). Maybe all of those years of making costumes and fancy dresses was worth it (even if she refused to wear them except under threat of death).

Bear and Hubby are the only two with the same love language - Quality Time. Ironically they both have trouble getting what they need.

Bear pouts that no one does anything with him, but he's not a lot of fun to be around and apparently it only counts if you are doing what he wants to do. He spends most of his time alone, gotta love RAD. Some of this is probably because he prefers to be doing active things like hunting and fishing, and prefers to spend his time with men. Hubby on the other hand prefers scuba diving and playing on his computer. For Bear it's Dad or nothing. I'm OK to hang out with as long as I'm taking him shopping. Needless to say, especially with our finances, that doesn't happen often.

Hubby also prefers one on one time. For him it can be just sitting near each other watching TV, doing the crossword, or holding hand when we walk. That's great, but with 4 kids, full-time jobs, and both of us prone to insomnia when we're stressed... we spend a lot of time separately on our computers. Me blogging, him working or playing video games.

Speaking of which, it's getting late, I have to put up the food, switch the laundry, and IM Hubby to see if he'll stay up a few more minutes to do the crossword.

If I can just figure out why this thing won't save!