Receiving and Giving Compliments!

Giving compliments is an important social communication skill with your middle school or high school students!

updated 1/2023 February is a great month for working on the important social communication skill of receiving and giving compliments with those middle and high school students, because of Valentine’s day, but you can work on it anytime! Giving compliments is one way to initiate and maintain a conversation, and make other people feel good!

Best Compliment EVER!

Let’s start out with an artfully crafted compliments from literature. While I don’t expect all my students to master compliments at this level, it is a great example:

TUESDAYS WITH MORRIE BY MITCH ALBOM

“I like myself better when I’m with you.”

Receiving and Giving Compliments-Activity Ideas!

Kick off the social communication or language group or session with your middle school students with a fun YouTube video (from Pun Diddley (with K. Janelle Brown) giving and receiving compliments. It’s 4:20 in length.

Complete the activity for the video from the PDF version of, “fill my bucket with compliments” or the GOOGLE slides version. Have your students share one sincere compliment they have been given that they remember. Discuss-why was it memorable? Why was it meaningful? Hold up a bucket or show a picture of one! Why? Giving compliments fill our buckets but insults empty it.

Need to weave in some vocabulary? Have students complete the synonyms and antonyms activity in the packet for the word, “compliment.“

Giving and Receiving Compliments: the language of the compliment!

Use the teaching story from the packet, “fill my bucket with compliments.” I like to start out by focusing on the LANGUAGE of the compliment first. Show your middle school or high school students a scenario and accompanying picture from the packet so they can practice formulating sincere compliments in specific situations. An example is shown above. Have students then give a sincere compliment (using the guidelines from the teaching story) to the person to their right, (if you are in a group). Make sure the person receiving the compliment graciously accepts it and does not downplay it!

Giving Compliments – Nonverbal Communication:

Once students have had success with formulating the sincere language of a compliment, it’s time to focus on the paralinguistic, or nonverbal communication piece of executing compliments such as:

• Use a sincere tone of voice.
• Make sure your body language matches the words.
• Smile but don’t laugh.

Paying attention to the nonverbal aspects will help the compliment sound sincere and not sarcastic. Role play and have students incorporate both the language of the compliment and the nonverbal aspects of delivering and accepting compliments, in their practice.

This packet also contains perspective-taking activities related to successful (and unsuccessful) compliments.

Hey! You can find other Valentine’s activities for your older students in this blog post!

Another Great Valentine’s Activity: the present

This is one of my favorite language and social commuunication activities for a group with middle school and high school students. Have you seen the animated short film called “the present?” It was co-written and produced by Jacob Frey and co-written by Markus Kranzler. Watch the short film with your students and choose a “pause and discuss” inferencing activity or assign each of your students a conversation role (initiate, ask a question etc) and have a conversation about the film. Everything you need for this activity can be found in this packet, “the present: social skills.” This film is also a great lesson about self-acceptance and resilience!

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