Complementing Compliments

Don’t we all love receiving compliments? A compliment is an appreciation for something you possess, it could be an object, a talent and the like. My eight year old son loves drawing sketches, so much, that he draws around ten of them at a time and keeps coming to me for feedbacks. I compliment him for the sketches which are outstanding and encourage him to do better on the rest of them. Can you imagine what would happen, if I end up complimenting him for each piece that he draws regardless of how they are? It would give rise to a false sense of pride and achievement.

In our day to day life, we come across many such instances, where in, we may be required to provide a feedback, we must do it honestly. If the dish is too salty, and the husband is all praises for his wife’s efforts, she would come to know the reality just by tasting that dish herself, won’t she? Of what use is the compliment then, leading to a bad taste in the mouth. Encouraging comments are better than complimenting in such cases. One does not need to be out rightly blunt or rude.
In order to encourage, most people end up complimenting at the drop of a hat. This does not go down well, if it’s not well deserved.

There are some others who shower compliments , so that they will not be probed further, causing embarrassment to both the parties. This is not the right thing to do, as the other party would approach them often for the feel good factor, causing the very embarrassment, they wished to avoid. How difficult is it, to offer complementing compliments? It would save a lot of agony for both the parties concerned. At the same time one should be able to accept a genuine compliment wholeheartedly. But, this is for another topic, my next post.

Have you been through this? What is your opinion on offering complementing compliments?