I know lots of people who are pretty left brained; by that I mean, they think things through thoroughly before they will use it (the knowledge) or accept it. They want to know the scientific facts, empirical studies and even though some things have been tried and tested for ages, they still maintain a “wait-and-see” attitude. Before I finished reading Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell’s “The Five Love Languages of Children” a few years ago, I was already sharing it with people around me. Some of my friends, who understand my usual enthusiasm about parenting ways, would normally hear me out and perhaps try to get a copy of the book to learn more. Others remain skeptical until there is more clout to it.

Well, something good has come out of this skepticism. It has just occurred to me that there is a scientific explanation to the Five Love Languages after all - from the neuroscience perspective. I’ve found Margot Sunderland’s “What Every Parent Needs To Know” an excellent source of scientific evidence. Sunderland, a child psychotherapist, is brilliant in her presentation of difficult jargon for the average layperson. It is, in my opinion, another book every parent should read. While she presents facts and lots of practical ways for loving parenting, “The Five Love Languages of Children” offers you additional tools.

When your child has his emotional tank filled (means he has received love through his primary love language, be it physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time or gifts), a surge of positive arousal neurochemicals, comprising mainly opiods, oxytoxin and prolactin, are activated in the brain. These hormones are powerful chemicals produced in the body and brain that give us a sense of well-being. Researchers found that when these hormones are strongly activated in combination, these neurochemicals provide us the deepest sense of calm and contentment.

When your child has lots of loving experiences in early life, her brain is constantly filled with oxytocin and opiods which make her feel very calm, safe and warm inside. Besides allowing her the best environment to explore the world with interest and wonder, she is building up the resilience to handle pain and stressful times in life.

Scientists have found that an individual’s psychological strength is linked to opiods being strongly activated in the brain; this simply means when your child is constantly flooded with opiods, she will grow being able to think under stress and calm herself, be socially confident, warm and kind. She will respond to personal feedback by thinking about what is being said rather than lashing out with anger or leaving and look into a resolution rather than blame in a conflict.

Do check out Gary Chapman’s website on his work at www.fivelovelanguages.com and find out what your child’s love language or yours if you still haven’t a clue. Lots of wonderful stuff there.

“The Five Love Languages of Children” book by Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell may have been specifically written to help parents and those who deal with children, I have found that the same principles can also be applied for adults.

The “Five Love Languages of Children” book has not only helped me to parent my children more effectively, it has helped me tremendously in my relationships with adults, namely my spouse, parents, siblings and friends. Fortunately for both my husband and I, we speak the same language; i.e. quality time. My husband works 12 hours daily on four weekdays and three and half hours daily for the rest of the week. So, we spend the Wednesday afternoons by doing things together while the children are away at school. We would run errands, go shopping, have pampering body and foot massages, rejuvenate at an anti-oxidant spa, watch a movie, attend workshops on self improvement, etc.

From the book I have also learnt to speak love in other wonderful ways through physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service and gifts. The authors emphasize the importance of using all the other four languages because every individual needs all of them although he/she expresses and receives love best through the primary one. It is vital to learn your own primary love language and of your partner’s to maintain a harmonious and loving relationship. Conflicts may arise when both of you do not share the same love language.

Even before I finished reading the book several years ago, I shared it with a good friend who was having some hiccups in her marriage. She used to lament that her husband was unappreciative of her efforts to cook him meals. Her husband was a frequent traveler who was used to dining at five-star hotels. My friend admitted that although her cooking paled in comparison, she would still try to whip up her husband’s favourite dishes whenever he was home. Her grouse was that he would eat very little and then “checked out” to meet up with his buddies for drinks and sometimes supper elsewhere.

It was so clear to me that my friend’s primary love language was “acts of service” followed very closely by “quality time”. Unfortunately her husband didn’t know that and, I realised, his primary love language was probably “gifts”. When my friend gave birth to her first born years ago, her husband bought her a big bouquet of roses. I had commented that her husband had a wonderful way to express his love and appreciation but she said those blue roses were not natural. What was his comment? “Blue roses are unique and special,” he said when my friend asked.

When I shared the five different communication styles of love with her, my friend saw a whole new perspective and gained a better understanding of herself and her husband. To show her love for her husband, she would learn to speak his primary language more and for him to express his love, he would serve in ways that she understands best. By knowing what each other’s primary language is and making the efforts, there would be more harmony and love in the home. This love would naturally spread to the children.

The following is a short video I downloaded from Youtube. I hope by sharing, you too will be inspired with the work of Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell.

Every parent would unanimously agree that love is the foundation of child rearing. A child’s well being is dependent on the love relationship between him and his parent. According to co-authors Gary Chapman and Ross Campbell of “The Five Love Languages of Children”, unless you speak the love language that communicates to your child of your love, he will not feel loved.
What are the five love languages? Each child (as well as adult) expresses and receives love best through one of five different communication styles:
• Physical Touch
• Words of Affirmation
• Quality Time
• Gifts
• Acts of Service

It’s important to discover which one of the primary love language your child speaks because by “speaking” it, you can fill his “emotional tank” with love. When he feels loved, he would be much easier to discipline and train. If you have more than one child in the family, you will come to understand each may speak and hear a different love language.

Chapman and Campbell advocate that the best fuel for your child’s emotional tank is unconditional love; show love to a child no matter what the child looks like, regardless of his strengths, difficulties and how he acts. They believe no child can receive too much appropriate unconditional love and that a child may be “spoiled” by lack of training or by unsuitable love that gives or trains incorrectly.

Children need all five languages of love to keep their emotional tank full. To be effective in meeting his need for love, it is vital you learn of his primary love language, the one that speaks louder than the others. When your child is feeling discouraged or distant, you will be able to focus your love by expressing it in his primary language. You will find lots of practical ways to help you learn about your child’s primary love language in the book.

Just be forewarned that it might be challenging to try to figure out your child’s primary love language if he is under five years old. However, the authors reiterate that the foundation of love laid in the early years would not only increase a child’s ability to learn, it would set him up all through his adolescence. If a child enters the adolescence years with an empty emotional tank, he is particularly vulnerable to the problems of the teenage years.

The authors believe that by teaching our children to love others with all the love languages (through our examples) we will be helping them as they grow to become sensitive to the needs of others. To help an infant develop emotionally, you must express love in all the five languages. As your child grows, you will find that one of the five languages speaks far more deeply of your love than the others and when that one is used negatively, he will feel very hurt.

Discovering your child’s love language is a process and it takes time, particularly if your child is young as he is just learning to receive and express love in all the languages. By speaking your child’s primary love language, the authors maintain that it does not guarantee your child will not rebel later but he knows you love him and that can bring him security and hope.

If you are one of those who appreciate tips on how to accomplish household chores in a jiffy, here are two videos on how to fold a t-shirt - the original version (in Japanese) and an English version. If you prefer a shorter cut to manging your laundry, you could try my friend, Nancy’s way: she hangs out all her family’s clothing in size-appropriate hangers on the clothesline and once dried, she takes them straight to the wardrobes. These clothings are naturally the ones which are wrinkle free.

Anyway, enjoy the videos; I have tried it and it’s really as easy as it looks.

Consider that an average person spends about 20 years in a formal education setting , it would be interesting to learn how one copes better than the other. What makes one child more resilient than the other?

According to a longterm research, children who are more securely attached with their carers are more able to adapt to changing life circumstances, such as school life, than those who have less secure attachment relationships. Further details about the Minnesota Longitudinal Project, which followed children and their carers from infancy to adulthood, can be found in “The Fate of Early Experience Following Development Change” by Sroufe L A, Egeland B, Kreutzer, T 1990.

Securely attached here means children who have developed highly trusting relationships, particularly in the early years. According to child development experts, children must acquire a balance towards the positive (i.e. trust) and some of the negative potential (i.e. mistrust). When children have a strong balance towards the positive side of trust, they will be able to meet later emotional/social development with more ease and will be more likely to maintain this positive balance.

As children who are securely attached and have a strong sense of inner security grow into adolescents, they would have a solid emotional and social foundation on which to develop further (read Beardslee W R (2002): “How to protect your children from the effects of depression in the family”).

On the flip side, children whose behaviours are of extreme defiance of adults and have an inability to form any peer relationships are characteristics of those who have serious attachment and trauma difficulties.

In short, trust is the keyword. How does a child develop trust, in order for her to improve her resiliency?

From the moment your child is born, she cries to be comforted. Crying is her way of communicating her need for your help. You take the first step in establishing trust when you pacify her. Experts say if you consistently soothe your child’s distress over the years and take any anguished crying seriously, highly effective stress response systems can be established in her brain. You can help her cope well with stress in later life.

Research shows that if a child’s need for comfort is not met with emotional responsiveness and soothing, her autonomic nervous system can over time become wired for bodily hyper-arousal. This can make life stressful and exhausting and also result in physical ailments in later life such as problems with breathing (asthma), heart disease, eating and digestive disorders, poor sleep, high blood pressure, panic attacks, muscular tension, headaches and chronic fatigue. In “brain-gut studies”, there is a link of uncomforted stress in early life with irritable bowel syndrome.

Neuroscience explains when a child cries, the stress hormone called cortisol is released by the adrenal glands. If she is soothed and comforted, the cortisol level goes down, but if left to cry continuously, the level remains high. Over a prolonged period, cortisol can reach toxic levels that may damage key structures and systems in a developing brain. Cortisol is a slow-acting chemical that can stay at high levels in the brain for hours and in clinically depressed people, for days or weeks.

Research shows when a child has an over-sensitive stress response system may leave her susceptible to anxiety disorders, depression, smoking addiction and alcohol abuse in later life. This is particularly the case with children left to prolonged crying as babies and then experienced strict discipline with little warm physical affection to compensate.

Attachment Theory developed by John Bowlby in the sixties may now be further validated by findings in neuroscience. The core theme of attachment theory is that mothers (primary caregivers) who are available and responsive to their infant’s needs establish a sense of security. The infant knows that the caregiver is dependable and she experiences trust.

The gravity of child sexual abuse issue in recent years warrants concerted effort as it cuts across racial, ethnic and socio-economic class. Keeping our children safe is the duty of all adults. Teaching children to be wary of strangers and not accept treats/rides from strangers are no longer sufficient. In most cases, the perpetrators are known to the victims.

In many countries, preventive education and appropriate counseling interventions have been successful in breaking the patterns of abuse. However, in order to teach prevention techniques effectively, we need to examine our social, cultural and religious attitudes about sex roles, family life, sexuality and violence.

Experts believe education is an effective preventive measure as it breaks through the silence and denial that have long tolerated child sexual abuse and thus, decreases the level of public acceptance. It increases access to resources for treatment and intervention by young people. More importantly, through education, children will understand and be more aware of issues related to sexual violence.

However, this does not mean the children would receive too much explicit information about sexuality. On the contrary, prevention education focusing on the dissemination of factual information about child sexual abuse and the development of skills would empower a child to avoid or to resist an approach by a perpetrator. Children without information and resources have few defenses against those who seek to harm them.

Prevention education within a religious context will allow children to discuss values, teachings and scripture as it relates to this topic. Given our general reticence to discuss sex, it is of vital importance that teachers (and parents) teaching the material have the correct attitudes and understanding about sexuality (factual information) and the correct religious perspectives on all matters related to sexuality.

Teachers with the correct information and right attitudes will be able to impart the right sentiment to children of all ages in the accurate language appropriate to them. Through a well-structured programme, our children will not only learn about personal safety but coping skills and core values such as self-esteem, empathy and respect.

In the latest Lancet medical journal, researchers have found that two common bacteria, Staphylococcus and Escherichia coli, may have contributed to cot deaths in infants. A team from Great Ormond Street Hospital (UK) have found high levels of these bacteria in post-mortem tests on over 500 babies who died of unexplained reasons. They concluded that one explanation could be that the bacteria released deadly toxins which damaged the heart, lungs or nervous system. However, they were quick to point out that bacterial growth might also be a secondary effect of other risk factors like over-heating, parental smoking and lying the child on its stomach.

Sudden unexpected death in infancy (SUDI) is a leading cause of death in babies under a year old, yet its root cause remains a mystery. In the UK, 500 children a year die of SUDI and 90 per cent of these babies are aged under age 9 months.

Interestingly, according to child psychotherapist and award-winning mental health author Margot Sunderland, research around the world shows very low rates of SUDI in countries where co-sleeping is common. In China, where co-sleeping is taken for granted, SUDI is so rare that it doesn’t have a name. In most parts of Asia, putting baby in another room is not an option for many families because they simply haven’t a spare room. In her book, “What Every Parent Needs To Know”, Sunderland says that solitary sleeping for babies is very much a Western middle-class phenomenon.

She further explains how SUDI occurs and how it can be prevented. SUDI is caused mostly by unstable breathing and an immature cardiovascular system. Scientific studies show that separation from a mother’s body means the baby moves into a primitive defence mode, which can result in wildly irregular breathing and heartbeat. After 6 hours of separation from his mother, a baby has stress hormones twice as high as a baby whose mother is close by. In contrast, being in close bodily contact with the mother stabilizes a baby’s heartbeat and breathing.

Sunderland espouses co-sleeping as extensive scientific research shows that safe co-sleeping can be a real investment for your child’s future physical and emotional health. Close physical contact with you will regulate your baby’s body systems such as arousal patterns, body temperature, metabolic rate as well as hormone levels. It also helps in the enzyme production, by increasing the strength of antibodies and thus his ability to fight disease. The anti-stress effect of close body contact releases oxytocin which boosts the baby’s immune system.

Co-sleeping means hours of extra body contact. Scientific studies show the more touch a child gets in childhood, the calmer and less fearful he is likely to be as an adult. Physical contact helps to regulate the stress response system in the brain, which , without this regulation can become hard-wired for oversensitivity. Some studies show that children who have never slept with their parents are harder to control and these children also tend to cope less well when left alone and more likely to have tantrums and be fearful.