Love Through Help

When a person is born into this world, he needs help from older and more experienced people, because he cannot do anything for himself. From the moment the baby appeared in the world, we, parents, help him in all matters. But the older he becomes, the less we do for him, considering that he is already big, while his need for help from another person remains. A child must become independent at some point, and all our upbringing consists in leading him to this state.

Help is an action aimed at making another person's life easier, caring for him, supporting him in difficult situations, participating in his life. Help can be provided in different forms. This can be participation in some activities, or it can be spiritual support during a crisis. This can be material support when a person is in debt or needs something, and we help him. This can relate to the exchange of knowledge, experience, practical advice that a person needs at a given time. This can be emotional support when your loved one is experiencing some tragedy or is worried about something, or doesn't know how to live. This also applies to any kind of support, encouragement and praise aimed at inspiring one's neighbor.

Expressing love through helping your child can be diverse and unique depending on the child's age, interests and needs. Conversation in this love language begins from the moment this miracle appeared in the world, when parents change the baby, feed him, teach him useful things and participate in his small affairs.

The love language through help always works in conjunction with other love languages, and sometimes, helping a child with some issues, you don't understand which exact love language you are using, but however it sounds, if unconditional love is invested in it, then it will sound beautiful.

To help does not mean to do something instead of someone and take on someone's household duties. For example, if someone is building a house and asks me to help, then I understand it this way. I will join the work that is already being done and contribute to the cause that is already moving.

If a child's duties include cleaning his room before bed and tidying it up, then this means that he is doing this, and I can, if I wish, participate in tidying up, or I can simply praise the child for neatness. But if I tidy up instead of him while he is busy playing with toy cars and is not going to fulfill his direct duties, then this is not help, but indulging his cunning and laziness. But when a child is sick and has certain duties, for example, feeding rabbits, which he physically cannot perform, then my help to him will consist in doing this instead of him so that he can rest in peace.

If my help comes from sincere love, from a desire to improve the lives of my children, then this love language will be in demand at all times, even if it is not the child's heart language.

Help from the whole heart is needed by all children, but it should be appropriate. "Emergency help" is also help, but if doctors come to you just like that, then there will not be much benefit from them, but only unnecessary and unwanted stress.

Very often children experience their many problems very deeply and hard, not finding the right solution to their small questions. Trusting relationships help to understand the essence of their concerns, and showing support, telling about your experiences in solving similar tasks - all this is irreplaceable help that brings hope and can inspire new achievements.

Faith that the child will succeed in everything, admiration for his small victories, a request that he not abandon his affairs halfway - this is also help that testifies to your love for your child and helps to bring the started work to completion.

A classic example of expressing help consists in jointly doing homework when studying difficult lessons, where one of the parents patiently shares his experience, shows attention and wisdom, trying to teach the child to solve these tasks quickly and independently.

Any of our prayers to God is our request for help, for His presence, for God's participation in our needs, affairs and concerns. And how joyful we are when we receive what we ask for, when we believe that the Lord has answered, and we see the result. The same thing is experienced by our children in relation to us when we justify their expectations and help them comprehensively and with all our heart.

There is a difference when I do something out of love or out of a sense of duty, or because I am obliged to do it. Children see and feel this perfectly, and accept this help, evaluating it by our approach. Only sincere love, which is given by God and is the driving motive, can express love through the language of help.

It is also worth noting that some children can manipulate parents and force them to do something instead of them, pretending to be weak or sick, making themselves "victims" of excessive tasks, exaggerating difficulties, declaring themselves unloved, comparing you with other parents who only help their children. Parents should be wise when listening to such requests and statements. Having understood how to play with parents' feelings, a child can become so absorbed in the role of manipulator that this will become part of his character, and correcting something will be much more difficult than initially politely correcting him and rejecting cunning requests for help, stating that he has enough strength to perform such tasks independently. Leading questions will help to quickly understand whether parental help is really needed, or you are dealing with a cunning person who wants to put everything on you.

How to understand whether help is your child's heart language? Observe his reaction to your care. Ask him questions about how pleasant it is for him when you help. Pay attention to how and through what he expresses his love. Ask him how he thinks whether you love him, and how your love for him is expressed, what is more valuable to him in your behavior and attitude.

If you do not study the question of your child's love languages, then this knowledge is unlikely to come by itself. At the same time, the young person's soul will thirst for the expression of love precisely in his native language, while parents will share with children what they themselves consider native or necessary.

Age requires more independence from the child in many matters, and parents can provide their children with such freedom of action that they completely stop giving them their love, considering that they have fulfilled their parental duty, and now children should serve themselves. But the child's heart thirsts for love and, not receiving it at home, begins to seek it elsewhere.

The personal example of parents in helping other people, in the care of father and mother for each other and for other family members, helps the child to assimilate and study this love language through service and care for others.

If you do not know your child's heart language, then do everything possible to determine this, and begin to study it if it is foreign to you.

1. Please read Gen. 2:18; Prov. 3:27; 1 Thess. 5:14; 1 John 3:18; Ps. 21:12; 45:2; 93:17; Matt. 7:12; 2 Cor. 9:7; Isa. 58:10; Rom. 15:1; Luke 10:33-34, in light of this chapter.

2. What other verses from the Bible came to your mind?

3. What did you understand from this chapter?

4. What is help?

5. Why does the need for help remain in a person even after he becomes older?

6. Why is it important not to take on the child's responsibilities if he doesn't want to fulfill them?

7. Why is help from parents especially important for children in difficult moments of their life or when they need it?

8. How not to cross the boundary between appropriate help and excessive care?

9. What does it mean to help out of love, and not out of a sense of duty?

10. Why is it important to combine help with other love languages? How might this look?

11. What signs indicate that a child is trying to manipulate parents?

12. Why do children begin to seek love in other places if they don't receive it at home?

13. How to understand that help is really important to the child, and not another love language?

14. How is genuine love through help expressed, and how can the child feel it?