“And what I want to teach kids every time I have an opportunity, when they get given feedback where that is good, a compliment that says, we are really proud of you, you’re really good at this. When that happens, I want to teach children to grab it with mentally, metaphorically, with both hands and to pull it into themselves, to lap it up and to go…”
TRANSCRIPTION
Accepting praise
Today at school, two of our boys, who are in grades three and four, had just finished doing their judo class. We run judo classes every Tuesday morning at the moment. And their sensei walked past, and I was standing right there. He looked at me and then at them, and he said, “These two boys, I am so proud of them.” They are doing so exceptionally well. They are remarkable. And both of the boys went, yeah, yeah, thank you, because they were busy.
There was an opportunity to teach children how to take compliments and really absorb them into themselves. Because when someone gives you the compliment of you’re really good, the saying of thank you to that person can almost be left at this external interaction where somebody says you’re really good and you sort of pass back a thank you and you move on too quickly.
And what I want to teach kids every time I have an opportunity, when they get given feedback where that is good, a compliment that says, we are really proud of you, you’re really good at this. When that happens, I want to teach children to grab it with mentally, metaphorically, with both hands and to pull it into themselves, to lap it up and to go…
I’ve just been told that I’m really good. What does that mean for me? I’m really good at this. And to internalize that as their own skill, their own capability, their own capacity, their own success, and to allow that compliment not to stay outside of them, and not to brush it back with a simple thank you, but to say thank you and pull it in towards them so that it becomes part of who they are.
It adds a drop of water into the bucket of positivity. So today I had the opportunity to get these kids to stop just for a moment and say, wait a second, listen to what your sensei is saying, really think about it. And he said it again, I’m really proud of these boys, they’re really phenomenal, they’re putting in the effort and they’re doing very well. And to have these boys take that moment and go, hmm, this is me, I’m being recognised, not a star on the wall.
But I’m being told a bit about who I am. I have been given an opinion by someone who matters in the sport. And I can lap that up, pull it in towards me, say thank you, and take it and keep it. I don’t have to bat it away. And when we teach children and give them positive feedback, their buckets of positivity fill up and tend to stay full.
And when they get negative feedback, they handle that differently. We can get into that in another podcast. But for now, when your children get a compliment, teach them to stop, really listen to it, take it in, and own it. It is theirs, it has been given to them, it is now theirs, and they can carry that forward with them. And this is a beautiful approach and skill to have for the rest of your life.
Every time you get given some sort of compliment, some kind of praise, some sort of acknowledgement, it’s not just to say thank you and bat it away, but to pull it in because it’s just an acknowledgement of who you already are. It’s a beautiful way to process positive feedback.
