Love languages for children

This is likely to be a short brain dump as it's the middle of the night and I should be sleeping. However, I woke up covered in hives and started reading which triggered this train of thought. 

My dad likes to give advice. On pretty much anything. After becoming a parent, he started giving me parenting advice. Now the dad I have today is a very different man from the dad I grew up with. My brothers got this dad for the most part, but I was the oldest and most of his parenting of me was done during a time when he was in a terrible marriage so his time and energy was spent fighting with my mom or escaping to work. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, my parents divorce gave me parents, really wonderful parents whom I love dearly. 

Anyway, my dad has been offering parenting advice for a while now and I realized, as I was reading this book, that my dad is giving me much of the same advice that is in this book without actually realizing it, or attributing it to Love Languages as the author calls it. I'm reading "The Five Love Languages for Children" by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell. It's a truly wonderful and insightful book that is full of helpful strategies for parenting. This book is a spinoff of Chapman's previous book simply titled "The 5 Love Languages" which is meant for adults. 

As I'm reading the author's philosophies, I am hearing the words of my father run through my mind and the information just hits closer to home. 

I have mentioned that I have a temper, and I yell when I shouldn't. I yell way too much, especially at the kids. Lately, Jayden has been incredibly frustrating. He isn't listening, he is being disrespectful and defiant, and his punishments aren't being taken seriously. I've been at my wits end. I was browsing through my audiobook collection when I saw this book and realized the problem may be that I'm not speaking Jayden's primary love language. His love bank is empty and he's acting out as a result. This thought prompted me to begin reading the book and already it is helping me see destructive habits I've formed and areas I need to improve with both of my children. 

The thing that hit closest to home was the following quote from the book, "The greatest enemy toward encouraging our children is anger. The more anger present in the parent, the more anger the parent will dump on the children. The result will be children who are both anti-authority and anti-parent. This naturally means that a thoughtful parent will do all in his or her power to assuage anger -- to keep it to a minimum and to handle it maturely."

This is something I NEED to work on. I'm not handling the kids maturely. I fly off the handle and I'm probably making my children feel horrible when I yell at them for the bad decisions they've made like coloring on their bedroom wall... again!! Right now, that quote describes Jayden and even the problems I've been having with him lately. Whether words of encouragement are his love language or not, the truth of the matter is that I need to make changes and try following the advice of my father, and the author. 

I'll be back soon to discuss more of the book and my fathers advice. However, my brain dump is complete and it's time to fall back asleep.