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

[ProjectionParenting]

Not every child is gifted but some families act like they are to soothe their own egos.

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.

That's like golden child and scapegoat

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

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.