Does Your Child Thrive With Compliments Or Simply Hate It?

Compliments—doesn’t everyone just love something good said about themselves? As it turns out, not really! Some of us love compliments, whilst some of us feel uneasy when being praised. Does your child shine and glow with compliments showered on them, or do they have a hard time accepting one? All’s well and good when our little ones thrive on compliments, for there are benefits that work in the background when compliments are properly given and accepted. But when a child hates being complimented, we need to do a little more work to help with the child’s underlying dislike for it. The Benefits of Compliments According to studies in neuroscience, compliments have lasting effects on a person, not only the 'feel-good' emotion when being praised. Compliments can significantly impact one’s memory, learning, motivation, and other cognitive functions. When we receive a compliment, two areas of our brain—ventral striatum and ventral medial prefrontal cortex—are activated, and a dose of Dopamine is also released into our system. The latter is associated with motivation, focus and positivity. Once our brain’s reward circuit is activated, and we feel so good, it sends a signal to our brain to encourage the same behaviour so that it can feel good again and again. Some research also suggests that compliments help with learning by improving one’s long term memory. It affects the part of the brain that consolidates and builds long term memory that happens during our deep sleep. The positive feeling from compliments associated with our learning something new gives our brain power a boost in making us remember the learning better. When a Child Hates Being Complimented or Can’t Accept Them This is more common that we think. Even some of us adults may find that deep inside, we aren’t able to cope with compliments ourselves. Why does this happen? Here’s why. A person’s receptivity to compliments is a reflection of their self-esteem and their deep feelings of their self worth. We tend to seek verification of our self-perception in others. If we think negatively about ourselves, but hear the opposite being said about us, it creates conflict in us. This conflict makes us feel uncomfortable in more ways than one, because it doesn’t jive with our beliefs. It can make someone feel inauthentic or untrue to themselves if they receive a compliment they think they don’t deserve. Some may even feel that the compliment is being lavished on them as a way to pressure them to perform. For a child who does not like attention, being complimented can make him feel uncomfortable because he’s drawing attention. How to Increase Receptiveness to Compliments Image credit: Canva First and foremost, compliments must be sincere and not simply being lavished for the sake of making a child feel good. A dishonest compliment, although may still make someone feel good, can backfire and create mistrust in relationships. So, a word of caution on using compliments judiciously. The first step to helping a child who doesn’t like compliments is to reword them differently, with more explanation to it than simply a one-liner like, “Oh you’re so clever!” Adding on the narrative (again, sincerely) as to why you feel the child is clever helps the child understand better about what you see in them. It may even help them gain a better sense of self-esteem. As an example, the compliment can be reframed to sound something like this, “I think you’re clever because you learned this new game so quickly, and you’re getting better at playing it.” Image credit: Canva Another way to help a child receive compliments is to boost her self-esteem until she has a more positive perception of herself. Kind Words Go a Long Way Image credit: Canva Showing a little sincere kindness with our words and actions can go a very long way in someone’s life. In conjunction with World Compliment Day this month, let’s show a little kindness to people around us. Sincere compliments don’t cost us anything, but may end up doing a world of good to someone else. For more insightful stories and fun recipes, stay tuned to Motherhood Story!

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