“You’re nice” fades by lunch. “The way you included the new kid today was cool” sticks for years.

General praise slides off because it could have been said to anybody. A specific observation proves you were paying attention at a particular moment, and that is the part that lodges. People replay the compliment that describes something they actually did, sometimes for years, because it tells them a true thing about who they are.

Give one specific one this week. Not an adjective but the moment: the thing you said in class, the way you handled your brother, how you kept going when the set fell apart. The detail is what makes it land.