To think some parents overpraise their children to compensate for their own insecurities?

Yes, that does sound toxic.

I'm sorry, it was hard to gauge from your earlier posts if the situation might not have been a bit more like my cousins.

One got praised for every mediocre attempt at things, and the other was told where they could still improve because, deep down, they knew one had far less ability. It was still unfair, but in their own way the parents were wanting to give each child what they thought was appropriate for them.

But yours does sound like a different situation, you are right.

Parents generally do their best based on their own experiences which can vary greatly. So, yes, they're doing whatever they do to try to improve on their own experiences (maybe not necessary "insecurities").

I do believe in character building though. Sometimes your worst experiences are the ones you learn from most. I'm not saying you should make your kids' lives hell, but a bit of challenge or you being not so perfect is no bad thing.

Well, I haven't shared all the details here, but I would say it's definitely toxic when your parent is physically and emotionally abusive to one child and not the other (well it's abusive if directed at all the children, but you know what I mean!), and will blatantly compare you saying one is bad and one is good, even when the 'bad' child hasn't done anything wrong and is a model student.

Even if one child is the 'weaker puppy' that doesn't mean you should be critical of everything the other child does, show no interest in them, no love, no affection, no praise. I think that's very toxic indeed

I think i praise my children a lot as my parents never praised me. I tell them I love them often too. I once heard a friend say this to her daughter and realised I'd never been told this! Sad thinking about it, but I started saying it then.

Do you think it is possible your parents saw him, deep down, as the weaker puppy and adjusted their expectations, which came across as making a lot of him?

I only ask as this happened with my cousins. One was just less capable and the parents tried to make up for that by bigging everything up.

It doesn't necessarily result in the right outcome for the children, but I just mention it because, in terms of the parental motivations, it comes from a different place than pure "toxicity."

I think I'm going to need some specific examples or contexts to make sense of what you're really asking.

I mean, some people obviously do over-praise their children but that doesn't mean its a common or wide-spread problem. Do you think otherwise, OP, or have you just seen an annoying parent at the school gate?

The vast majority of parents simply love their children and want them to know it so give them lots of praise and encouragement for their endeavours.

There are better and worse ways to offer praise (e.g praising effort is generally better than praising results and giving praise that describes a specific action is better than a generic "good boy/girl") but most parents get it good enough most of the time.

Yes. It's exactly that! Extremely toxic. I find it ironic that I was the one who was treated poorly but turned out ok, and he was treated so well by everyone and it ruined him. He still sees me as the scapegoat, even though my parent changed during their life and became proud of me, saw who I really was and explained why I was the scapegoat, and we made peace with things/evolved. I think they did see who my brother was eventually, but they still couldn't ever give him any criticism/feedback about how out of order he is. Had to go no contact with my brother now. He and his wife went full on DARVO with me when I tried to give him feedback about his unreasonable behaviour and get him to do family related tasks after parent died

That's like golden child and scapegoat

I think parents need to be balanced. There is confidence boosting and praising, but there is also reinforcing poor behaviours.

My sibling and I were raised very differently in the same house. I could do no right and was constantly criticised. Even my success and high grades/good reports were met with snide comments. I was never given positive feedback or encouraged at home. Luckily, because I was very bright, teachers and people in the wider community saw something in me, and took me under their wing, encouraged me and gave me opportunities. I grew up to be highly motivated and successful in my career and academic life. I am content with my own pride in my achievements and don't need anybody else's approval, I do things for myself.

My sibling could do no wrong. He was very average at best and didn't really achieve much, but was praised excessively and told how everything was a great achievement. Which was odd when he was told his mediocre school reports were amazing when my glowing ones were criticised. He has ended up not achieving much in life, no qualifications (only GCSEs), took years to get a proper job after leaving school, and is now trapped in a job where he can't move from it because he hasn't got the right qualifications to move elsewhere and do what he is doing now. He is lazy, and let's people down and just never pulls his finger out when things need to be done, even though when we have had family tasks to do I have done the lions share. He is completely unreliable and needs to be promoted multiple times to do things he agreed to do. He is highly toxic, has a massively inflated sense of his own status/achievements in life, and I definitely think this is related to how he was treated as a child. I honestly think the excessive praise for doing nothing/not trying in life created the monster he turned into and massively distorted his world view.

Surely if you over praise you devalue it? If you gush over everything it just becomes meaningless wall paper noise..

Well every child is bright on here although it seems looks come first

''my beautiful, bright.....''

But I would say if speaking of praising to the childrens themselves I sometimes it would be encouragement sometimes love and ,aybe sometimes insecurity but only the parent themselves would know intnetional or not

But I do there all of the school parent dramas/playgroup/kids parties issues parents have atleast seems to come down to parent insecurities

It's very subjective imo because what may seem as overpraising to one parent would be a completely normal way to acknowledge and praise for an achievement for another. Noticing and praising your kid's achievements is a normal thing to do overall but throwing a whole Smartshow 3d video about their every little step would be a bit too much, though everyone draws that line differently. I agree that some people may live through their children in a way and this overpraising may come from their own point(s) of insecurity, i.e. they were never praised or were just barely noticed so now they try to avoid making the same mistake with their kids. As one of my friends says about her DD, "if I'm not telling her she's beautiful, who will?", and she says so because she herself admitted being in abusive relationships simply because those partners showed some kindness and admiration towards her and she never got it from her parents.

Yes, I agree.

I still shudder at the memory of a dad coming to school Parent's Day and loudly asking his DS why he wasn't top on the reading ladder. He acted as though he was showing the rest of us parents how it's done! The poor boy looked crushed; the Dad looked very pleased with himself!

Yes absolutely agree, but I don’t think confidence is linked to achievements, but to getting to be good at something. That could be being good at the monkey bars at the playground or doing a thorough job of the washing up, it doesn’t have to be related to concrete achievements. You can help children to notice the things they have worked hard on and improved at, instead of just praising them.

Praise can also be for effort or steps towards a goal e.g. acknowledging something they want to achieve is difficult for them. You can praise their ability and provide reassurance to their confidence that they can do it as they can learn/achieve things which are difficult for them.

I remember reading something about the voice in your children's head being yours. Making sure it is a positive, encouraging and supportive voice instead of critical and admonishing.

When you're up against it - stressed, in pain, panicking etc, you have a way of speaking to yourself. That voice is likely to reflect how you were spoken to when younger.

I want my children's inner voice to be saying, 'come on, you can do this, you're brave and strong and work hard through difficult things.'

I am and will always be the most voracious cheerleader for my kids. I tell them all the time how proud I am of them and how great I think they are. I praise their effort, I praise their choices, I praise their behaviour - not just their achievements.

There are much worse things for children to grow up knowing their parents think they absolutely wonderful!

Actually, while I don't think praise hurts, I also think the most important thing is that children feel loved unconditionally for who they are, not because of what they can or have done or could do.

In fact, the best way of instilling confidence in a child is for them to actually get good at something (rather than be praised for being good at something).

I agree there is truth in this, but I think, having been around some very pushy parents in high-achieving schools, you do need to be wary of tying their self-esteem to their achievements. If that happens, it becomes a case of needing to be the best or feeling worthless, which is not a happy way to live.

I actually find the more insecure parents tend to put their dc down - almost as if embarrassed of them. I find this very hard to listen to.

Also, children are unique and amazing because people are. Of course when you take a particular interest in one, you are going to start to pick up on their strengths. It's how we fall in love.

I remember seeing this and agreeing with it 100%

As a person who was raised with criticism and condemnation and had dreadful self esteem issues I celebrate my kids every single day and praise them all the time. I don't lie or go overboard and they know they have faults but it is all praise and bringing them up in this house.

Do you mean parents who over praise / overstate their children’s achievements to other people? If it’s praising the child, surely that’s normal to build up confidence when they’re learning something new? My kids are amazing btw!!!!

I think people over praise because they think praise instils confidence. They think you have to encourage every little thing otherwise children will give up. In fact, the best way of instilling confidence in a child is for them to actually get good at something (rather than be praised for being good at something). It's important to get the balance right between being positive and encouraging, whilst not making children overly reliant on outside approval.

I was raised with a lot of praise for academic achievements but received no attention (positive or negative) for anything else. For years I thought that being clever was the only good thing about me and had a minor existential crisis when I went to Cambridge and everyone was clever. As I was praised for my achievements rather than any work ethic, I really struggled to develop any kind of consistent work ethic.

With my own kids I went too far the other way and adopted the point of view that praise was manipulative. I was loving but avoided all praise. I abandoned that when my eldest son had behaviour issues and now have a policy of giving judicious praise and positive attention (which helps a lot with behaviour). I only give praise that is authentic. For example, if I'm shown a terrible picture I will say something positive about the use of colour rather than saying 'what a great picture'! I do a lot of positive noticing because I read about the 6:1 ratio (try to give 6 pieces of positive attention for every piece of negative attention/criticism) - 'you washed up your plate without me even asking', 'thank you for picking up your clothes' etc. When I get the ratio right I notice a big improvement in how I get on with my kids generally.

I think I’m guilty of over-praising sometimes but it’s got nothing to do with my own insecurities. I just love her so much and think everything she does is amazing! Which I think is fairly natural. Also, she’s somehow ended up (despite all the praise) as not a very confident child. She doesn’t really believe in her own abilities and often hesitates giving an answer to something cos she assumes it’ll be wrong. So it’s even more important imo, to praise her to help build up her self-confidence and belief in herself. There’s got to be at least someone in the world who thinks you’re the dogs bollocks and can do no wrong and that person really should be your parent

Not necessarily. Maybe they understood their own parents put them down and didn’t want to make the same mistakes. It can be a fine line though.