Last month I had the opportunity to review
A Teen’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages® : How to Understand Yourself and Improve All Your Relationships by Gary Chapman. Having an almost teen-aged son, it couldn't have come at a better time.
I read Gary Chapman's book
The 5 Love Languages® several years ago and took the inventory as well, so I knew my two highest love languages are Receiving Gifts and Acts of Service. This book gives your teen the chance to learn his/her love language by completing an easy profile. Everyone has a primary love language, and knowing which is yours can really help improve your relationships!
This latest book teaches teens how to interact with others using their love language, and important skills like how to apologize sincerely, and how to become a better listener. It focuses on maintaining healthy relationships with family members and friends. I consider it a must-read for any teen! As a Mom, I enjoyed reading it too. David has just started reading it, so he hasn't taken the profile yet. I can't wait to find out which of the love languages top his list. I believe knowing his love language will help our relationship as we navigate the teen years!
Here is more information about this book and the author:
Chicago, IL – In a teenager’s world of hashtags and chat acronyms, where relationships
are measured by Facebook likes and Instagram followers, and where a long-term
friendship can be discarded with a click of the mouse, developing lasting, meaningful
relationships can be a challenge. But there is hope.
“Everyone has relationships at some level,” says Gary Chapman, author of
A Teen’s
Guide to the 5 Love Languages® : How to Understand Yourself and Improve All Your
Relationships (Northfield Publishing, May 2016) with Paige Haley Drygas. “The question
is, “What is the quality of those relationships?” Maybe you have a thousand Facebook
friends but feel like nobody understands you. Or, maybe you feel you and your parents
are from different planets. The good news is it can get better. The secret is learning to
speak love and appreciation in a language the other person can receive.”
Chapman, a pastor, counselor, and author of the New York Times bestselling
The 5 Love Languages® (more than 10 million sold) brings his popular love language teaching for the first time to the lives of teens, helping them navigate the many relationships they face with family, friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, teachers, teammates, coaches, and more.
“Our culture often dilutes the meaning of the word love,” says Chapman. “We tend to use the same word for how we feel about Belgian waffles or a football team that we use to describe our deepest bonds. And for many teens, the word “love” often conjures up images of romance. But, as we learn, love is much more than that and when we understand how to communicate love within all of our relationships, we’ll live a much richer life.”
In
A Teen’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages® , Chapman lays a foundation for what love really is (a choice) and how that translates into all relationships, and takes teens step-by-step through each of the individual love languages—words of affirmation, quality time, gifts, acts of service, and touch. He outlines the general characteristics of each love language, explains the various dialects within each language, and offers practical examples of how to communicate the love languages in the daily ups-and-downs of relationships. He also spends time focusing on helping teens navigate their relationship with their parents and siblings (it doesn’t have to be negative), shares how to handle anger and apologies, and encourages teens to focus on their “tribe.”
“Rather than having five hundred lame, half-hearted, Facebook-only relationships, you can cultivate five or ten thriving relationships in which the others really know you and feel known by you,” says Chapman. While Chapman encourages teens to learn how to build relationships with others by speaking their love languages, he also spends time helping teens figure out their own love language by observing their own behavior, noticing what they ask others to do for them, listening to what they complain about, asking the right questions, and taking the included Love Languages Profile.
“Discovering your own love language helps you understand why you feel more loved by and connected to certain people,” says Chapman. “Once you know your own love language, you start to get your instincts—why you love others the way you do, why you’re drawn to specific people, what you’re looking for in a relationship. This self-knowledge can really help you in life.”
Gary Chapman, Ph.D., is an author, speaker, and counselor who has a passion for people
and helping them form lasting relationships. He is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of
The 5 Love Languages® and the director of Marriage and Family Life Consultants, Inc. Gary
travels the world presenting seminars and his radio programs air on more than 400 stations.
For more information, visit 5lovelanguages.com.
Want to get this book for your teen? Here's a link to it on Amazon (affiliate link). I'm also including one for the original book - it's so good!
I have a copy of
A Teen’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages® : How to Understand Yourself and Improve All Your Relationships to give away to one lucky reader. Enter via the Rafflecopter widget below - one mandatory entry and a couple extra easy-peasy entries! (Plus, you will find out your love language!)
