For a compliment for each other thereby improving everyone’s…
For a compliment for each other thereby improving everyone’s self-esteem the rule is that during Friday any dinner everyone Has to pay, at least one complement to each family member every round one family member is under the complement spotlight, and they receive praise from the rest of us one after the other when we first started doing this, it was a real struggle, my oldest daughter, and son couldn’t possibly find any compliment to give each other for weeks. They called each other enemies and would argue non stop at the dinner table. They were times we had long silences as you’re waiting to your compliments, and sometimes the big children begged us to skip their turn the oven off her to sacrifice there a dessert for a pass, but I made it clear saying nothing is not an optionPage 205 Ivalu, I think I appreciate them bringing these special words into the family vocabulary. We can help our children recognize and say good things.
— from Family & Parenting (Family/Parenting)
In the book
Eat together, and give that table your whole attention. Build small rituals that carry the love — in my family there is a Shabbat each week, twenty-five hours with no phone and no screen, time simply to be present with the people I love; in another family I admire, every Friday dinner each person must pay a genuine compliment to every other person at the table, a game that was a miserable struggle at first and slowly taught children to look for the good in one another. There is a deeper reason these gatherings matter so much — deeper than habit, deeper even than love — and it is one I have only fully understood as I have grown old. — Family & Parenting (Family/Parenting)