Communicating your child’s love language to medical professionals may be a new idea to you. I hadn’t thought about it much until I interviewed caregiving parents for Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families: The 5 Love Languages for Parents Raising Children with Disabilities. 

The strategies those parents used when talking to their children’s doctors, therapists, and other professionals improved the quality of their kids’s care. We all want the services our children receive to be the best they can be, so today I’m sharing a few overarching strategies from chapter 9 of Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families today.

• Help medical professionals see your child as a person. This can be done by acquainting them with your child’s preferences–favorite foods, activities, sports and sports teams, video and board games, books, shows, movies, and of course, their primary love language.
• Use professional jargon to describe a child’s love language. Instead of using the term “physical touch,” suggest effective therapy techniques such as “deep pressure.” Instead of saying “words of affirmation,” suggest certain phrases that “motivate my child.”
• Provide professionals with a “dossier” or “fast track information sheet.” The sheet can include a child’s medical information, communicate techniques, preferences, such as primary and secondary love languages, and more. Sample forms are provided in the appendix of Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families.

Communicating your child’s love language to medical professionals can be an effective tool in a parent’s advocacy toolbox. According to the parents interviewed for Sharing Love Abundantly in Special Needs Families, it’s a simple tool to use and benefited their kids. What more could a parent want?

Links to other articles in this series:

The Love Languages and Special Needs Families: A Good Combination

Basic Love Language Concepts to Ease Stress and Increase Joy in Caregiving Families

Threats to Caregiving Marriages and How To Fight Them 

Love Is a Child’s First Language

Determining the Love Language of a Child with Special Needs or a Disability 

Ways to Speak Words of Affirmation and Quality Time to Kids with Special Needs 

Ways To Speak Gifts and Acts of Service to Kids with Special Needs 

Speaking Healthy Physical Touch to Kids with Special Needs

Using the Love Languages with Siblings of Kids with Special Needs and Disabilities 

Extended Family Members Can Use the Love Languages to Encourage Caregiving Parents

Communicating Your Child’s Love Language to Educators 

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