Meaningful Compliments

Giving compliments is way to express our admiration for a person or their characteristics. Real, meaningful compliments are about a person’s character, talents, actions, etc., not about their clothes or appearance. We can give compliments to ourselves. We will learn how to give meaningful compliments to each other today.

1. The teacher invites the students to think about what kinds of compliments are be meaningful and to give examples of meaningful compliments. To learn how to give meaningful compliments to each other, the teacher can have students read Appendix _, paying attention to how each sentence begins.
2. Next, the teacher asks the students to choose a famous person or character (singer/actor/cartoon or book character, etc.) and identify a participant who will play the roe of this character during the activity.
3. The child plays the role of the chosen character/person, and the other participants give him/her a meaningful compliment. For example, if the students have chosen the school principal as a character, they can give the following compliment: “I like that you invite us to your office and talk to us.”
4. Then, the teacher can invite other students to play the role of the chosen character/person and receive meaningful compliments.

• How did you feel when you complimented others?
• How did you feel when you received compliments?
• Which compliments do you think are significant?

For primary school students:

• Ask the students to get into pair and use Appendix _ to give meaningful compliments to each other. For example, “You are very good at __.”
• If students struggle to compliment each other, ask clarifying questions to help students emphasize certain traits of each other’s character. For example, what traits or actions of ___ (child’s name) do you like?

For students in grades 5-6:

• Ask the students to write compliment to each other on pieces of paper. Then, encourage the students to share their compliments in public, comparing how they felt when they wrote them to how they felt when they said them aloud.