How To Show Your Child Love Through Acts of Service

Acts of service is one of the five main ways to show your child love. Learn how to show love through serving in a healthy way.

Love language service

The final love language discussed in the Five Love Languages of Children by Chapman and Campbell is acts of service.

On the surface, acts of service seems simple and straightforward. You do nice things for your child and she knows you love her.

It is not, however, that cut and dry. Here are a few warnings they give surrounding this way to show your child love:

“Don’t view acts of service as a way to manipulate your children” (page 90).

“…if we parents give in to desires or even demands for too many gifts and too much service, our children can remain childishly self-centered and become selfish” (page 90).

“However, this caution should not keep parents from using the language of service and gifts in appropriate ways” (page 90).

Just as most things in parenting, it isn’t a super simple act. Let’s talk about the ways to show love through service.

Providing Age Appropriate Service

It really can be easy to show love through service in those early years because children basically need everything done for them.

As your child gets older, you need to be sure your child learns to do things for herself.

“You should do for your children what they cannot do for themselves” (page 91).

This means that when your child is ready for it, you teach him how and have him do it himself.

You feed a 6 month old with a spoon, but a 6 year old is capable of feeding himself.

A 3 year old won’t be able to make her bed on her own, but an 8 year old can.

So you start life doing the service acts for the child.

Then you move on to the intermediate step. That is when  you teach them how to perform acts for themselves.

Does it take more time than doing it yourself? Absolutely yes.

Will it be more sloppy and less efficient? Most definitely. “Parents who are too busy to teach children how to do laundry, or too perfectionistic to let them do it, are not loving those children but crippling them” (page 91).

Offering Service

This is where the line gets harder–where things aren’t so cut and dry.

You want your children to learn to be self-sufficient. You want them to learn to do things for themselves.

But you don’t want to lean so far in that direction that you offer no service to your children.

So make sure you offer service and help to your children when they need it while still balancing the teaching of self-sufficiency.

Take time to serve your child by doing things for her, even once she can do it for herself. You want to teach her to be self sufficient, yes. Once she is, then those moments you get her bowl down for her will feel like real service.

Just as you appreciate someone doing something for you, your child will appreciate you doing things for her.

Serving With Love

When you perform acts of service, be sure it is in your heart that you are serving.

Do so with love.

I know things get mundane. Changing another diaper gets old. Filling up that cup of milk for the fifth time before you have even had a chance to take a bite of your own dinner can be frustrating.

Try to keep the proper perspective.

If you serve grudgingly, your child will feel that, and any love that could be communicated through the service will be negated by your negative attitude (see page 94 for more).

“When parents serve their children with a spirit of resentment and bitterness, a child’s physical needs may be met, but his emotional development will be greatly hampered” (pages 94-95).

And don’t feel bad if you have ever offered service grudgingly. I would venture to say all of us have at times.

Have you ever entered that nursery at 3 AM in a bad mood because you are up in the night? Have you ever been super annoyed as you picked up your child’s socks off the floor? You are not alone.

As Chapman and Campbell point out, “Because service is so daily, even the best parents need to stop for an attitude check now and then, to be sure their acts of service are communicating love” (page 95–emphasis added).

Ideas for Showing Love Through Service

If your child’s love language is service, here are some ideas to show love in this way:

  • Help child with sports practice
  • Help child with homework
  • Make a snack for your child–especially a favorite when the child is having a bad day
  • Carry child to bed and/or tuck in bed (rather than just sending them to bed)
  • Make meals for children
  • Serve others together
  • Help your child get ready
  • Take special care of your child when he is sick
  • Choose a special way to always provide service. For example, always making sure the special stuffed animal is in their bed before bedtime
  • Help fix broken toys

Conclusion

As you serve, you teach your children to serve. As you serve your children, neighbors, and spouse, you show them how to serve.

Remember that it is good to show love through all five languages, so even if you think your child’s primary love language is not service, show love through acts of service.

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This post originally appeared on this blog January 2011

How to show love through service

3 thoughts on “How To Show Your Child Love Through Acts of Service”

  1. This is very interesting post. I love this book and I suspect acts of service is one of my older son's love languages. Too early to tell for sure, of course. 🙂

    Reply
  2. You are welcome Ruth! It is hard to tell, Kristy. And I wonder how many kids end up "multi-lingual" like the authors encourage parents to strive for.

    Reply

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