Rhyming Prompt: December 2
Have I told you lately
That you are quite divine?
I’m in awe of how greatly
You sparkle and shine.
I heard all the nice things you said about me,
And it warmed my heart like the summer sun.
Thank you for being complimentary.
Let’s come up with some praise to give someone!
Download the first four prompts here as a PDF, or here as a Microsoft Word document (you may have already printed these yesterday—I’m just re-posting them here for convenience).
An image of the rhyming prompt for December 2nd printed on cream cardstock with a green border. It has a red wax seal with a frog impression highlighted in gold, and is nestled in a lit Christmas tree.
Other Materials:
None. For this, I’ll simply be passing compliments back and forth with my children all day. You can easily make this a much craftier activity if you would like to; this Complimitten activity from the Social Emotional Workshop is adorable.
Suggested Pose:
My poses for this project are never going to be elaborate because the last thing I need is extra cleanup. I want my kids to get right into the bathroom when they wake up for tooth brushing, so I’m going to hide him holding the toothpaste (but absolutely not squirting it everywhere). Besides, who doesn’t need a good compliment when they first look in the mirror?
Frantz the Frog sits on an extremely ‘90s gray and white speckled laminate countertop. He has one arm around a tube of bubblegum toothpaste and the other is holding the second day’s prompt.
Activity:
Today’s goal is to convey the importance of compliments, strategies for crafting an effective compliment, and, importantly, how to take a compliment well. In order to gamify this, I’ll be playfully passing compliments back and forth with my kids all day, with the goal of sharing our favorites from the day around the dinner table.
Rationale:
Compliments themselves are pro-social behavior and are not necessarily indicative of empathy; they could easily be motivated by the possibility of rewards (like a compliment in return). However, giving and receiving compliments lets kids practice three crucial components of empathy: positive relationship building, recognizing interpersonal similarities, and perspective-taking.
We know that people like those who compliment them, as Dale Carnegie intuited and later studies have proven (Gordon, 1996). Nevertheless, many people are hesitant to give compliments generously. A recent study on the power of compliments suggests that people vastly underestimate how positively compliments, even from strangers, will be received, and that this misperception of the value of compliments discourages people from giving them (Boothby & Bohns, 2020). Importantly, the same study also suggests that people are less likely to offer compliments because they doubt their ability to do so competently, which, let’s face it, is a reasonable fear. As anyone who has ever been made uncomfortable by a compliment knows, they aren’t all created equal, and when they go wrong, it can be disastrous. Recent studies note that Americans generally loathe compliments that reinforce positive group stereotypes (i.e. that Asians are good at math, that women are nurturing, etc.) (Siy & Cheryan, 2013), and compliments on physical appearance are fraught. Some studies have shown that American English speakers offer compliments more often than speakers of any other language, but that these compliments are generally formulaic and are often perceived as disingenuous (Luu, 2018). When we lack confidence in our ability to craft and deliver effective compliments, we sacrifice a social tool that makes both the compliment giver and receiver happier (Boothby & Bohns, 2020)—and which can foster important relationships.
In order to better utilize compliments, we need to participate in perspective-taking. The best compliments are specific, authentic, and require us to attempt to inhabit the recipient’s point-of-view. If we want to help our kids become confident compliment givers, we need to show them how to:
Identify something they genuinely like about someone
Consider why they like that thing
Tell the other person, without exaggerating
Research suggests that both children and adults are more likely to empathize with people who seem familiar and similar to themselves (Zahn-Waxler et al., 1984; Smith, 1988). While we’ll be working on recognizing similarities across differences in the coming days, the social value of a compliment makes evident a near-universal desire to feel both recognized and appreciated, and that realization alone is a valuable step in the development of empathy.
Book Recommendation:
Next to You, by Lori Haskins Houran and Sydney Hanson. This book depicts a series of cloyingly sweet pictures of baby animals and tells the reader, over and over, that those animals have nothing on them. I don’t like that this book is comparative or that it is mostly looks-based, but I love how cute and playful it is. Most importantly, I love that my kids LOVE it. Every time we read it, they are swooning by the end. We’ll be reading this today because it helps them understand how wonderful it can feel to get a compliment.
An image of the cover of the book Next to You. An adorable collection of baby animals—a fawn, bunny, piglet, puppy, kitten, duckling, and several chicks—are happily piled together in front of a white background.
References
Boothby, E. J. & Bohns, V. K. (2020). Why a simple act of kindness is not as simple as it seems: Underestimating the positive impact of our compliments on others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 1-15, https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167220949003
Gordon, R. A. (1996). Impact of ingratiation on judgments and evaluations: A meta analytical investigation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 54–70, https://doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.1.54
Luu, C. (2018, July 11). The uncertain art of the American compliment. JSTOR Daily. https://daily.jstor.org/the-uncertain-art-of-the-american-compliment/
Siy, J. O. & Cheryan, S. (2013). When compliments fail to flatter: Individualism and Responses to positive stereotypes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 104(1), 87-102, https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030183
Smith, P.K. (1988). The cognitive demands of children's social interactions with peers. In R.W. Byrne & A. Whiten (Eds.), Social experience and the evolution of intellect in monkeys, apes, and humans. Clarendon Press.
Zahn-Waxler C., Hollenbeck B., & Radke-Yarrow, M. (1984). The origins of empathy and altruism. In M.W. Fox & L.D. Mickley (Eds), Advances in animal welfare science. Humane Society of the United States.