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The affect of participation trophies on young children
Negative impacts of participation trophies
Negative impacts of participation trophies
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No More Participation Trophies Think back to doing little kid sports. Everything was great. It didn’t matter if you showed up to practice, and the score never mattered. At the end of the season your coaches would hand out participation trophies. What. A. Joy. A trophy that everyone gets no matter what they did. Win or lose, everyone gets one. When children get those lovely shiny pieces of plastic, think about how many people actually did earn those trophies. Not many, because participation trophies are not earned, they are given (gladiatorguards.com). Many people say that participation trophies make things fair. Really? Someone could not come for one of those practices and still get the same award as someone who worked really hard. Is that really fair? Besides, what kind of messages are these trophies sending? Are they setting kids up for a fallout future because they don’t know how to work for things? Winning feels amazing and losing hurts. But to have the …show more content…
Say there’s a really good player and a really bad player. Giving both the same award is almost like saying to the really good player, that their abilities don’t matter. Even though you’re really great at playing this sport, we’re just going to give you and this not-as-good-player the same award. Think about it like a test. If I got an A on a test and someone else got a C, we can tell that I did better than the other person. Therefore I deserve the better grade. But if we treated this situation like they do with participation trophies, it would end a lot differently. Now because the other person at least tried and participated during the test, we’re going to give them the same grade as me because they tried. Now if you were me in this situation, how would you feel? It would seem like how hard you studied for that test didn’t matter whatsoever. Do we really want to take situations like this into children’s sports? If you are really the best, than be the
He didn’t take his sport seriously because he knew he was going to get a trophy anyway, whether he won or lost. Giving a trophy to a kid who maybe didn’t participate in a game but tried his absolute hardest in practice to get better is understandable. However, giving a kid who did nothing in practice to make himself better just shows that child that you don’t need to work for anything in life because either way you will get rewarded. “There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.” And what about those kids who aren’t that great at activities, or they don’t show up to practices? Should they still get a trophy? Are they qualified to sit in the same category as a kid who works their butts off in practice, shows up everyday, and is a good sport? I understand showing that everyone is equal, but there comes a point when you have to show a child that they need to work for what they
Every kid on the football field has a trophy. Even the kids who are on the losing team. Kids’ and parents’ faces are bright with smiles, and laughter echoes throughout the field. Kids are showing off their miny trophies, each with a bronze football on them. No one is paying attention to the two feet tall, gold, first place trophy that is in the winning team’s coach’s hand. Everybody is focused on the miniature trophies. Why are these trophies so special? These are participation trophies. Every kid gets one just for participatcuing in a game. Kids started getting participation trophies in the 20th Century. They got the trophies to feel more confident about themselves. Trophies should not be given to every kid because of narcissism increase,
Handing out participation trophies does not teach kids about the real world. O’Sullivan says, “We reward them for having a parent capable of registering them for a sport.” Participation trophies are for registering and showing up the day they hand out trophies, they are not for hard
A solution could be improved by only handing out trophies to those who have earned them. There have been many studies to show the harms of participation trophies and how they can affect a child’s future. One study has shown that “if coaches use trophy presentations as a way to acknowledge each player’s unique effort or contribution, that message can be powerful” (Ross), but the fact is that many coaches will not do this and for that reason participation trophies must be banned from youth athletics. When coaches hand out these trophies they are sending the message that they don’t care and just want the children to always be acknowledged as “winners.” Participation trophies have also diminished the value of true awards, and can make the children who have put in the effort and hard work not feel the reward they should. “In the kid’s movie The Incredibles, the evil villain tries to give everybody superpowers. His theory is that if everyone is special, then no one is special” (Krumrie). This is very true in our society and needs to be implemented by regulations and rules to make sure this does not happen. These rules and regulations would be set by athletic associations across the country to ensure the use of participation trophies are not used in sports. The directors will come
A participation trophy can help a child's drive to improve. When a child plays a game and loses, but then watches the other team get a trophy they feel that they suck and won't try to improve. Once they get a participation trophy they make the child feel like they did good and that next time if they get better they will get a bigger trophy for winning and not losing. For instance, “Further, studies also tell us that children who participate in sports get better…”(Huffington 1). This exemplifies that children who participate feel the drive to get better at the sport. When inferring that since they participated they are getting an award if makes them feel like they did good, and then they want to get even better to get a better reward. Thus making the kids get better at the sport showing that participation trophies are beneficial to children, but there are more opportunities to show how they are
Some people may argue that if everyone gets a trophy, everyone will be happy. That might be an understandable concern, however, according to people on blog.sportssignup.com, “By acknowledging everyone with the same award we’re actually celebrating no one and even undermining the efforts of those who really deserve to be recognized.” Similarly, it makes the kids who work really hard feel like there efforts were equal or worse than the efforts of those who do not try hard and do not work hard. On the other hand, if everyone gets a trophy than winners are no longer special. Kids should play sports because they enjoy playing them, not because they want a trophy. It is like one of those arcade games at the movie theater, you keep playing until you win. Another way to say this is, sports were made because they wanted to let people have fun and try to compete, but now sports is turning into the concept of everyone is a winner. Kids and adults feel like we are ruining what sports are supposed to be. In summary, many citizens think that kids should not get trophies for participation because only kids who work hard deserve
Trophies were once infrequent in society. You would have to go to your local jewelry store and spend top dollar on a shiny piece of sterling silver or gold. Thus, you didn’t see a whole lot of children running around with new trophies every week. However, with the arrival of the 1960s, many factories that had been once used to produce military goods during WWII would now be available for mass-production consumer goods. Trophies would now be marketed and sold to coaches and athletic departments, or available at your hometown sporting goods store (Merryman). In modern day society, sports participation trophies are almost guaranteed, ensuring every child is a “winner” at the end of the day. These participation trophies are extremely harmful to our youth and should only be given out when deemed necessary.
Recently, the topic of participation trophies and direct achievement has been debated among parents, schools, and coaches as it seems that within every event, children are awarded with some form of acknowledgement. Plaques, certificates, medals, and trophies are thrown at kids left and right; but, do they have a significance in a child’s overall ability to discern achievement from failure? Or do these seemingly meaningless trinkets have more worth in memory and core values like perseverance and commitment?
Some people think that giving children a participation trophy after a sports game or season is a helpful thing to do. People may think this because it can teach kids the importance of showing up to practice and games and trying your best, which are important skills later in life. (Heffernan 1) Kids will also be happy that their hard work is being acknowledged and rewarded, in the form of a trophy. (Heffernan 1) However, this
These are my reasons why all kids shouldn't get trophy's. The first reason why all kids shouldn't get trophy's is. All kids don't work hard and try to get better. While other kids are working hard and try to get better by practicing and working. Also, some kids don't put in as much effort as other's do playing and practicing.
L. Hefferman’s article “ In Defense of Participation Trophies: Why they really do teach the right values?” it states “ An award is not really an award if everyone gets it.” (Today.com) In another article by Ashley Merryman called “Losing is Good For You” it says “Awards can be a powerful motivators but nonstop recognition does not inspire children to succeed. Instead, it can cause them to underachieve.” (New York Times Sept. 2013) It is clear, by not giving participation awards it make the children who do get awarded feel more special than if everyone gets one. Obviously, not giving participation awards to everyone gives more of a boost of self-esteem to the people who do get
Imagine it’s the end of the basketball season. There’s an award banquet and every kid got a trophy for participation. The children who worked the hardest still got the same trophy as everyone else. That would be very unfair in my opinion. Children should not be rewarded with participation trophies at the end of sports seasons. They should only receive trophies for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place. One time when I was little I played basketball for a church league and I got a participation trophy and I thought it was dumb to get that just for playing.
The society we live in makes it normal to give out awards that have not been earned. Why should we give awards to people that haven’t earned them? People will say that we do give out unearned awards to encourage children and make sure they don’t feel left out or feel like they aren’t good enough. In reality, studies have shown that awarding children for only participation has a negative impact. Kids know when they have earned
Determining whether to award participation trophies or not is a controversial issue in America today. Surprisingly, most people are in favor of not awarding participation trophies to children because of the negative outcomes. A solution that is suggested to solving the problem is to ensure both the winning and losing team a trophy. Conversely, when both teams receive a trophy this defeats the purpose of even playing the game. Children are smart enough to know if they won or lost a game, and by letting each team receive a trophy it creates confusion for children. If a child is rewarded with a plaque after a loss, this could cause confusion for a child because he or she might not understand the purpose of the plaque. Several children understand that while competing there is only one true winner, and by giving both teams awards this creates a false sense of how sports actually maneuver. As children grow old enough to play for their school’s team, they will quickly learn that only teams who win are awarded trophies. Teaching children how a sport operates at a young age could help children comprehend sports better and sooner. Children should not be given participation trophies because the winning effort should be awarded, each sport is a competition, and children deserve proper feedback.
Todays generation of kids have been crafted to expect praise for everyday tasks and have become entitled all because of something many people thought was harmless, participation trophies. If you ask anyone, they have probably recieved a participation trophy at least once in their life and some will think it was a good thing, but others may beg to differ. In my opinion participation trophies are a bad tool in life because it goes along and is a big part of the we are all winners concept. Trophies should be a symbol of accomplishing something not a symbol of participation in an activity and a few people have written about their opinion about this situation varying from critical writers, to college athletes from around the country here are