The Compliments Jar: A Method for Teaching Children with ADHD to Give Compliments to other Children

I have been familiar in the past with this great method for encouraging children to give compliments, but was reminded about it by one of my Fordham students last Thursday evening. Teachers can try this method with an entire class, and/or parents can try this method with an individual child. Feel free to adapt it, however. Here we go…


Find a jar that is approximately the size of the sugar jar that diners used to hold sugar years ago. If you are not familiar with that type of jar, you can use a peanut butter jar, (empty, of course!) or a jelly or a preserves jar. The decision as to what size jar is directly related to how long you are going to facilitate this method.

Let me explain more… Each time a child says a compliment to another child, the teacher or parent puts either a piece of paper, a marble or a gum ball into the jar. (No one eats the gum balls, however. They are just used as a way to take up space!) The type of object that you put into the jar is also decided by the amount of time (a day, a week, etc.) that the child or the children will have to fill up the jar. If you are facilitating this method over one day’s time, I would use gum balls or marbles. If you are using this method over one week’s time, I would use paper.

If you want to use this method for one day, then you would use a small jar. If you want to use this method for one week, you would use a larger jar. You also have to decide what prize you will give to the children or the child if the jar is filled up. Do you want to give a pizza party to the whole class? Do you want to permit the one child to have a special lunch with you? Do you want to have everyone watch a fun movie? Do you want to give the individual child extra computer time?

There are some possible problems that might come up in terms of using the compliments jar with an entire class. If everyone gives a compliment except for a few children what do you do? Do you give the prize to the class anyway, or do you penalize the class because a few children did not cooperate. What I would do is to keep trying to get those children to give at least one compliment to someone if most of the class has given compliments. If you try the compliments jar, please let me know if it was effective.