Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Participation trophy essay
Negatives of participation trophies
Negatives of participation trophies
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Participation Trophies Are Not Helping You or Your Child “If everyone is special, no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.” This was a quote said by David McCullough Jr. in his famous You’re Not Special speech. This quote is very true about the great participation trophy debate. This debate has been going on for a long time and has still not been settled. While participation trophies help boost the confidence of non-winners, participation trophies are useless because no one will be motivated to get better of everyone has trophies and trophies cost a lot of money to make. If everyone gets a trophy, then there is no more competition in sports, without competition no one will be motivated to get better. In Former
a sport with no pressure to do better than anyone else, there are no winners or
Our society has shifted its beliefs in how we should treat competition in young people. The question is asked, should all kids get a participation trophy? As it may seem to be an unanswerable question, it honestly isn’t. Thought that the participation trophies may send the message that “coaches” value the kids’ efforts despite their abilities, trophies do not need to be given out. Your words mean just as much when you remind an athlete that you value them in more ways than one. Some may think trophies are a great idea because it shows that everyone’s a “winner.” However, I disagree with that idea. I believe that kids should know that they need to work their hardest in order to be rewarded and understand that not
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
According to researcher and author of “Top Dog: The Science of Winning and Losing,” Ashley Merryman says “having studied recent increases in narcissism and entitlement among college students, (she) warns that when living rooms are filled with participation trophies, it’s part of a larger cultural message: to succeed, you just have to show up.” She also says “if children know they will automatically get an award, what is the impetus for improvement? Why bother learning problem-solving skills, when there are never obstacles to begin with?” She goes on to say handing out trophies undermines kids’ success: “The benefit of competition isn’t actually winning”. Another author says “when you’re constantly giving a kid a trophy for everything they’re doing, you’re saying, ‘I don’t care about improvement. I don’t care that you’re learning from your mistakes. All we expect is that you’re always a winner’” (Ross). These particiation trophies have many negative effects that can make these children less succesful in competitive enviornments: such as college or in the work force. It will also make them less prepared for an independent life after leaving
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
“Tro-phy; noun: A cup or other decorative object awarded as a prize for a victory or success” (Oxford Dictionary). Not too long ago, some well-meaning person or persons made a decision that would greatly impact today’s generation of kids. They decided that we needed to give all children a trophy for only simply participating. There became an unwritten rule that it was "wrong" to celebrate winning, because it would hurt the losers' feelings. Now days a team who goes undefeated in a youth sport will receive a trophy, but so will all the children who came in last place and did not win a single game. Society has spent so much time worrying about our children's self-esteem, or hurting their feelings that they have missed the boat on teaching them hard, but much needed life lessons. Participation trophies and praises are almost a given as children are constantly assured that they are winners, and this has become a fiery debate amongst parents and coaches. The “no winners, no losers” culture we are creating for this generation of kids is having negative life-long consequences in school and the workplace; however, it has not always been this way.
The maxim “trying is the important thing” will only lead to laziness and complacency in life. Trying is very important in being successful, but there are many more important things that are necessary for success. Parents try to boost their children’s self-esteem and make their children happy by giving them participation medals, but this is actually counter-productive. Larger and larger amounts of medals and trophies are given for increasingly smaller achievements, and this “everybody’s a winner” mentality can make children grow up to expect success and recognition for a mediocre performance. Children may be led to underachieve and not try their best, which may lead to idleness and lack of achievement in the truly competitive environment of
Competition is not ok in today’s society getting rid of it will help a person feel like winning is not all that matters and lift stress. It will help a person have fun in the event and not make it so intense. It will also help lift up a person’s self-esteem and their self-worth. Taking competition out of our society will make life for each person so much better.
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
Opponents argue that participation trophies are fair solution in youth sports. However, if both teams received a trophy it would not be fair to the winning team. The team that wins is the team that put forth the proper effort in preparing for the game. Children need to learn that they cannot win everything in life, it is impossible to always win. But at the same time, children also need to learn that it is okay to lose at times. Losing is a great too...
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
“It’s do or die time,” said by perhaps someone yearning for the win of a lifetime. Competition will occur throughout every ones lives. By dictionary definition, competition is “to strive to outdo another for acknowledgment, a prize, supremacy, profit, etc.” (dictionary.com). In which case each and every one of us has attempted, to either win that gold medal in race, become number one in our league, or just be noticed by getting the only A in the class on an assignment. Competition does have a bad reputation and flipping through the thesaurus for similar words you may find, “battle” or “killer” or maybe perhaps “cutthroat” (dictionary.com). Which is as negative and unappealing as it can get. In what instance did wanting to win or prosper so indefinitely become something as grueling as that? When did wanting to be successful turn into a bad thing? Our culture has embraced this “win-at-all-costs” attitude that children and adults are under so much anxiety to win or succeed, that the fun and excitement has vanished from sports for so many. Increasing the amount of cheatings, overblown egos, terrible sportsmanship, and individual outbreaks (nfhs.org). Competition is in fact the truth, maybe not so fair to all concerned, could build better friendships, and also is probably not so beneficial to all concerned.
Kelly Wallace, author of Does sports participation deserve a trophy? Let the parental debate begin!, reports that participation trophies are not to make everyone a winner but, instead to recognize the child’s hard work put towards the competition and to give them a memory of the experience they have had says Honea on Facebook.(Wallace) While, that may be the case in some situation why can’t the child’s hard work be enough if they know they tried their hardest why can’t that be the experience for them they don’t need a trophy for it . Also children cutting down on competition because they’re “too young” and competition contributes to low self-esteem affecting a child’s motivation and their overall performance “Kohn made his case that competition is not an inevitable part of human nature, that it causes anxiety and shame, that it creates disabling stress that inhibits performance, and that it fosters aggression and hostility”