The Compliment Gap

Why I Shrink from Praise and She Reaches for It

When someone compliments me, I flinch.

When someone doesn’t compliment my daughter, she wilts.

At first glance, it might seem like we’re opposites.

She’s expressive, affirming, eager to be seen and always wanting more.

I’m reserved, wary, uncomfortable and quick to minimize.

But the more I sit with it, the more I see we’re not so different.

She chases the praise I’ve always dodged. Two sides of the same coin. Both patterns stem from the same root: insecurity and the search for worth. And as I've continued on my healing journey, I'm beginning to see myself in her. Not in the way she asks for compliments, but in the why.

If you tell me I’m kind, creative, or capable, I’ll instinctively try to brush it off. I’ve spent years rehearsing how to downplay myself.

Sometimes I laugh it off. Sometimes I point out someone who did it better. Sometimes I just change the subject. Praise doesn’t feel right to me. It feels like pressure, or a misunderstanding, or like someone’s seeing a version of me that contradicts what I believe about myself.

What I didn’t understand for a long time was this: I wasn’t being humble. I was being self-protective. Compliments felt like they exposed me—like someone had shined a light on a part of me I wanted to keep hidden. So I got good at dodging the light.

My daughter, on the other hand, is drawn to it.

She lights up when you affirm her. She doesn’t hide her desire to be seen—she craves it, needs it, sometimes demands it. She tells me about something she did and watches my face for a reaction. And if the praise doesn’t come naturally, she’ll prompt it:

“What do you think?”

“You have no idea how hard that was.”

“I'm never going to be able to remember it all.”

For a while, I judged that. Silently. It felt needy. Performative. A little exhausting.

But I've come to understand that what she’s doing is what I never gave myself permission to do: ask for affirmation. She’s not asking for compliments because she’s vain. She’s asking because, in her own way, she’s looking for proof. That she’s enough. That she’s valued. That she matters.

Her hunger for compliments doesn’t come from arrogance. It comes from the same place mine does: insecurity. The way she goes about it is louder than I ever dared to be. But the ache underneath? It’s familiar.

It turns out that avoiding compliments and chasing them are both coping strategies. Mine is to shrink from praise because I fear I'm undeserving. Hers is to seek it constantly because she fears it won't come. Same battle. Different armor.

Slowly, I've come to understand that both of our behaviors—her reaching, my shrinking—are strategies for dealing with the same core fear: "What if I’m not enough?"

I learned to survive by disappearing before I could be judged. She’s learning to survive by gathering enough praise to prove she belongs. But neither of us has fully learned how to hold that worth from the inside out.

For her, compliments feel like emotional oxygen. They soothe. They stabilize. But the comfort is temporary, so she keeps reaching.

For me, compliments feel like risk. They disorient. They don’t match the script I know. So I keep rejecting.

Different directions. Same ache. So for both our sakes, I’m trying something new.

Instead of offering empty praise or trying to shut her down, I'm learning to reflect things back to her:

“You seem proud of that.”

“That really mattered to you, huh?”

“What did you like about it?”

I’m not trying to stop her from seeking compliments. I’m trying to help her build something deeper—a sense of self that doesn’t have to be validated from the outside.

And I’m working on doing the same for myself.

When someone offers me a kind word, I try to let it land—just for a moment. I try not to make a joke. I try not to explain it away. Sometimes I even say “thank you,” even if it feels like holding my breath.

Because whether we’re chasing praise or dodging it, the root work is the same: learning to believe we are already enough. Without applause. Without performance. Without proof. She reaches for the light. I tend to hide from it. But deep down, we both want the same thing: to believe our worth. For now, the kindest thing I can do—for her and for me—is to stop treating the need for affirmation like a flaw, and start seeing it as a message:

“I want to feel real. I want to feel worthy. I want to know I matter.”

Because the truth is: we both do.

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