Have a "Praise Day" with Your Students
Lou Holtz, the Hall of Fame former Notre Dame football coach, has written a book, A Lifetime of Love: A Game Plan for Marriage and Family Life, filled with loving stories about his fifty-nine year marriage to his wife, Beth, who passed away in 2020. In narrative form, there is practical advice that students in a high school Marriage or Vocations course could benefit from. One of the practical suggestions could be applied directly to your students. The Holtz’s would designate one day per month in honor of one of their four children. They called it “Praise Day.” Each member of the family would go around the dinner table sharing one specific statement of praise for the person being honored. They would also give that person a small homemade gift. Consider breaking up your class into groups of four or five students. Have each person write praise notes for the other people in the group. The notes should be specific such as “I admire the way you take care of your younger siblings” or “You are so kind to underclassmen. I saw you help a freshman with directions to Room 33 the other day.” After the notes have been written, have the students distribute them around the group. The last minutes of the activity should be reserved for quiet reading of the notes with no further discussion. Below is an excerpt from A Lifetime of Love, describing “Praise Day” in the Holtz household by Coach Holtz and his adult children. No matter your profession, any parent will experience ups and downs in raising their children. Children themselves, especially today, face several cruelties that can bring them down. One of the most important things we discovered as parents was that we had to be able to lift our children up when things weren’t going particularly well. Consequently, we came up the idea of holding a “Praise Day” for a child who was discouraged, had a setback, or needed a lift. A couple of days in advance, we would designate an entire day of the week in that child’s honor. We didn’t do anything fancy. We let the child pick out the menu for dinner. After we ate, each sibling and then my wife and I would take turns saying nothing but positive things about the child being uplifted. The comments had to be positive, and they had to be sincere. I felt that really did an awful lot to help our children’s self-image, particularly when they were down. Also, whenever one of our children had a birthday, we also gave a small present to the other children because we wanted them to look forward to their sibling’s birthdays as well as their own. Luanne: When it was my turn for Praise Day, I always chose steak. Liz: And Skip always liked spaghetti. But no matter what we ate we had to go around the table and say something nice about the person whose night it was. Kevin: I remember we had to say two positive things. No negatives. Sometimes we had trouble coming up with two! Skip: The comments had to be sincere, and we also had to give a gift. Luanne: We’d get a couple of small gifts. Liz: They weren’t expensive, but they meant a lot. Skip: It was a neat thing. I remember getting homemade things. Liz would draw a picture for me. Liz: It was like having a birthday every six weeks. Skip: Praise Day was a day when we knew we were appreciated by the family. Kevin: It really made us feel needed and loved. I don’t know any other families that did something like that. Maybe more should. Liz: After Mike and I got married, my parents gave us a special red plate. We use that red plate when our three children are together with us. Everyone has to go around the table and say something positive about the person who has the red plate. Over the years a lot of love has been shared over the red plate.
