December 2: Compliments

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:

1. Identify something they genuinely like about someone

2. Consider why they like that thing

3. 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.

December 1: It Begins!

I cannot believe that November is almost over, but here we are. I’ve spent this weekend grading papers and doing very little to foster any excitement for the Christmas season, so I’m particularly delighted to welcome our frog this week and instill a little holiday cheer!

An image of my festive frog, looking dapper in a waistcoat and scarf. He is sitting on a plush elephant chair in front of the lit Christmas tree. One arm jauntily occupies the armrest, while the other holds the rhyming prompt for December 1. The book Lights of Winter is on the chair beside him.

Since this is our first prompt, I’ll take a moment to explain my plan for formatting each day. I intend to lead with the prompt, followed by recommended materials, pose, and the actual activity. If you just want to get to it, you’re more than welcome to stop reading there. I’ll also go on to include a rationale for each day’s activity, along with a book recommendation. Read these only if you’re interested—they’ll be longer winded and more theoretically focused.

With that out of the way, here’s our first…

Rhyming Prompt: December 1

Well welcome, hello, fancy meeting you here!

I’ve come to your home to spread holiday cheer.

Every day this month, I’ll share a surprise;

Some are gifts, some are games, some will help you be wise.

I can’t wait to get started, and I’ve brought your first gift,

It’s the world in your hands: hope it gives you a lift.

I’m printing our rhyming prompts on cardstock four at a time to save time, ink, and paper, and you can, too. Download the first four prompts here as a PDF or here as a Microsoft Word document.

A close-up image of the first day’s rhyming prompt, printed on cream cardstock with a green border. I have also dropped some red sparkly sealing wax and created a frog imprint, then highlighted it with a gold felt-tipped pen, because my frog is extra. I mean, how else would you know it was authentic if it weren’t sealed? However, it’s clear that the frog isn’t particularly good at using sealing wax yet, and the effect is somewhat messy. It’s the thought that counts; he’ll get better throughout the month.

Other Materials:

Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations Around the World, by Heather Conrad and DeForest Walker.

Suggested Pose:

Somewhere easy. My kids aren’t expecting this little frog, so I want him easily visible to cause a stir when they wake up.

Activity:

I can’t wait to have my kids meet the frog and name him. Once the initial excitement has died down, we’ll cuddle up and read this great book, which is all about different winter holiday celebrations worldwide. If you don’t have this book, your frog might share this National Geographic page with your kids, which details some of the same information. After we read, I’m going to emphasize how kind it is of our frog to visit, how we should make him comfortable while he is here, and how generous it is of him to bring us a gift.

Rationale:

Today is about scaffolding, relationship-building, and developing a more global understanding of human behavior and tradition. While it may seem silly to think about fostering a relationship with a plush toy, it is important that the frog is real and relatable for my children. That’s largely because empathy—the ability to understand and appreciate another person’s feelings and experiences—isn’t something that can be taught abstractly. Lauren Morril’s viral tweet “I don't know how to explain to you why you should care about other people," is so resonant precisely because empathy feels innate and unteachable. Morril’s relatable lament, and the repercussions of American individualism more broadly, drove me to research how experts suggest fostering empathy in our children. I may not be able to teach everyone how to care about other people, but couldn’t I at least figure out how to teach my own children?

While I have learned a lot about empathy development since then, one important takeaway will feel familiar to parents and educators alike: empathy education, like all education, is most successful when it is experiential. My hope is that the frog will be both a steward who guides my children to exemplary models of empathetic behavior and engaging perspective-taking projects, but also that he will be a relatable figure with whom they can practice building rapport despite the fact that he is just fabric and fluff.

While today’s activity is exceptionally simple, it is designed to meet several somewhat complicated aims:

1. The gift of the book will foster warm feelings for the frog, and make my children want to engage with him daily, even when the prompts are not accompanied by an external reward.

2. The frog’s gift-giving models pro-social behavior and generosity.

3. The book’s contents will encourage my children to engage in some rudimentary perspective-taking with other children around the world who have different holiday traditions. Beginning to recognize difference is an important turn away from solipsism.

4. The conversation surrounding the frog’s arrival and comfort also encourages the children to consider his needs and perspective. Ideally they will begin to creatively imagine how those needs are both similar and different from their own.

5. This also gives the children an opportunity to articulate the their own needs, which they have projected onto the frog, and which children rarely have the chance to do in moments of calm (i.e. when they are not urgently striving to have those needs met).

Book Recommendation:

This one’s a gimme: Lights of Winter, obviously.

Let’s have fun today, and I can’t wait for the rest of the month. Thank you all for joining me on this journey!