According to Dr Gary Chapman, to be their best, children need to feel loved. But if you and your child speak different love languages, your affection might get lost in translation, affecting the child’s attitude, behavior, and development.

In order to make a more concerted effort to demonstrate affection that doesn’t get lost in translation, I got Ben to try the Love Languages Personal Profile Online Assessment for Children.

For a child to attempt the online test himself, he needs to be be able to read and understand the two sentences presented in each question and choose the one he prefers to have Mom and Dad say to him. Since Ben is only three-half, I sat him down and paraphrased the statements in a way he could understand. For example, instead of reading out loud “Let’s go to the movies”/ “I’m gonna race you”, I would say, “Ben, do you like Dada to say ‘I wanna play catching with you’ or do you like it when he says ‘Let’s watch Transformers together’? Which one makes you excited?” I contextualised every question for him so we can find out which of these speaks his primary love language: Words of Affirmation, Quality Time, Receiving Gifts, Acts of Service, and Physical Touch.

The darling patiently sat through 20 questions, and I was one happy mom. The verdict: his primary love language, as I have always known, actually, is Quality Time and Receiving Gifts. The two scores were almost similar.

I also intend to cull about ten questions from the online quiz and tailor it to even smaller bite-sized pieces for my two-year-old. I need to understand her and speak her love language. Wait, that’s an understatement. Make that I desperately need to demonstrate love towards her and yell her love language so she wouldn’t act up all the time to get my attention. I already had my heart broken last week when she wanted to leave home.

It’s not easy being mom. And wife. For the big and little ones that matter to you, you gotta figure out what makes them tick and what they will interpret as love, and that itself needs a lot of learning, unlearning and relearning. Plus you need to speak their love language and practise demonstrating affection that resonates on a daily basis. Hopefully, that will also be a whole lot more rewarding and meaningful. I’m just glad this online tool is available for me to revisit the five love languages and take a step forward to becoming a better mother and wife. You should try it to understand the people that matter in your life a little bit more!