Milan Yerkovich - How We Love Our Kids: The Five Love Styles of Parenting

Milan and Kay provide us with the tools of self-awareness which can enable us to consciously examine the love styles of the past and become conscious of the stored feelings and emotions that we carry forward into parenting. This book will now be one of my primary reading recommendations.

M ICHAEL W. S HANNON , MD

Another home run for Milan and Kay Yerkovich!

S HERRIE E LDRIDGE , speaker and author of Twenty Things Adoptive Parents Need to Succeed

After reading this book, our first thoughts were, Every parent needs to read this bookregardless of the ages of their children, and, Reading this book could not only protect children from the pains of growing up but also heal the parents hearts. This book offers insightful, practical ways of understanding children and parenting. We recommend it.

R OGER AND B ECKY T IRABASSI , authors of Let Love Change Your Life

This book is a true gift to parents who yearn to understand and communicate with their children, thus bringing about healing and restoration. Milan and Kay remind us that God is our perfect model for parenting. This book has touched my life, and I know it will touch yours too.

E LIZABETH J OHN , MD

Milan and Kay provide us an entirely new way of looking at parenting. Rather than focusing solely on the how-tos of parenting, they help us explore the powerful forces of our own upbringings on how we parent and provide a path to change those forces for good in the lives of our children. As a parent educator for over twenty-five years, I see this book as the resource weve been missing!

L AURA T AGGART , licensed marriage and family therapist

Finally! A treatment of parenting that acknowledges the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room: parents working out their personal issues on their children. If you want to transform your childs life, then let Milan and Kay gently, firmly, and skillfully guide you on this amazing journey of personal change.

K ENNY L UCK , author of Soar, Fight, and Dream

Imagine decreasing the drama in your home by simply learning how to comfort one another. This book unfolds five distinct love styles in parentingtheir traits, strengths, and pitfalls. The real-life stories allow us to see ourselves and how we naturally express ourselves to our children. Whatever blend of love styles is under your roof, Milan and Kay will show you the direct route to building deeper love, intimacy, and connection.

S HERI D ENHAM , PhD, MFT, and co-host of New Life Live

If youve ever struggled with being a good enough parent, ever been triggered by your childs behavior in ways youd be too embarrassed to recount, or ever compensated with your child to override your guilt, then you wont want to miss How We Love Our Kids!

J ILL H UBBARD , PhD, co-host of New Life Live and author of The Secrets Women Keep and The Secrets Young Women Keep

Milan and Kay have given us great insights into how our own attachment issues affect our parenting styles. Every parent needs to read this book, regardless of the ages of their kids.

D AVID S TOOP , PhD, author of Just Us and Forgiving the Unforgivable

Whether you need a parenting tune-up or a major overhaul, How We Love Our Kids will help.

S TEVEN A RTERBURN , founder and chairman, New Life Ministries

How We Love Our Kids holds out the possibility of creating the loving, healthy family you always dreamed of.

K AY W ARREN , founder, HIV/AIDS Initiative, Saddleback Church

H OW W E L OVE O UR K IDS
P UBLISHED BY W ATER B ROOK P RESS
12265 Oracle Boulevard, Suite 200
Colorado Springs, Colorado 80921

Scripture quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible. Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission. (www.Lockman.org).

Details in some anecdotes and stories have been changed to protect the identities of the persons involved.

Copyright 2011 by Milan and Kay Yerkovich

Published in association with Stephen Arterburn: .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States by WaterBrook Multnomah, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc., New York.

W ATER B ROOK and its deer colophon are registered trademarks of Random House Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Yerkovich, Milan.
How we love our kids / Milan and Kay Yerkovich. 1st ed.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-72925-5
1. ParentingReligious aspectsChristianity. 2. Personality. 3. Personality in children. 4. Child psychology. I. Yerkovich, Kay. II. Title.
BV4529.Y47 2011
248.845dc22

2010043304

v3.1_r2

To April, who penned this poem after overcoming a chaotic attachment
and discovering what bonding feels like in a secure relationship.
Our hope for all you who read this book is that someday
your kids will say this about you as a parent.

You are gusts of gentleness
Cool, swift movements of grace
My Wind

You are drops of truth
Wet, clean pieces of trust
My Rain

You are shades of safety
Green, sheltered canopies of peace
My Tree

You are heights of radiance
Blue, calm spaces of kindness
My Sky

You are acres of freedom
Fresh, new blades of courage
My Grass

You are blankets of promise
Soft, comfortable layers of protection
My Bed

You are an ocean of love
Deep, strong currents of beauty
My Heart

We would like to thank our agent Steve Arterburn for his efforts in making this book a reality.

We are thankful that WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group believed in us enough to take a leap of faith and publish a second work.

We are grateful for our primary editor Mick Silva who helped shape the presentation and wording of the book.

Finally, we wish to thank our beloved kidsKevin, Amy, John, and Kellywho helped us to grow up and taught us all that we know about being a dad and mom.

O ne fall, at the conclusion of a weekend marriage seminar, a young mother named Melissa approached us. Her eyes sparkled, and she grabbed my (Kays) arm as she spoke. I had the most amazing experience, she said. Because of your teaching, my husband and I have started seeing our marriage problems in a whole new light. But I didnt expect to get parenting help as well. This morning, when we dropped our seven-year-old girl off at the baby-sitters, I remembered what you taught yesterday about the importance of self-awareness and offering comfort for others feelings. Weve had difficulty with this in our marriage, but even more so with our kids.

Melissa continued, Our seven-year-old, Gina, is superemotional, and honestly, its always annoyed me. Every October she gets scared by the Halloween decorations, and she has crying fits if she gets anywhere near them. Ive been telling her all week that they are just plasticthat none of it is real and shes a big girl now. This morning at the baby-sitters house, the entire front porch was covered in Halloween decorations. Gina started to have a fit in the car. I got so irritated and was just about to launch into my Its all pretend speech when I remembered the feeling question. So I asked, Gina, how do all those decorations make you feel?