Why participation trophies must be eliminated
Trophies, while nice, may not always be necessary.
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Loading ...Congratulations! You are receiving a trophy for showing up to practice!
Adulthood is only an extension of your experiences as a child. As we grow up, self-esteem is one of the most important personality traits that an individual can obtain. If you want to build your self-esteem, you have to do things that make you proud. When awards are given out to kids like candy, they decrease in value and lack the ability to build one’s self-esteem. As time will show, it is clear that people appreciate rewards for things that are more difficult to achieve.
The key to gaining self-confidence is to work hard. Sitting back and expecting to be rewarded for actions that require little to no effort is setting oneself up for failure in the future. When one player is given a trophy at the end of a season and is known to have performed very well, and then another player is given the same trophy for just participating with no effort, the player that performs extremely well may ask themselves, “Do I really need to work hard, when my teammates, who only give half the effort that I do, also received the same trophy?” Unfortunately, the participation trophy teaches kids that effort and belief in oneself are not important and that they will be rewarded regardless of their performance.
Winning a trophy collects five minutes of pride and a lifetime of dust, but giving 100 percent and finishing what you started collects a lifetime of irreplaceable self-confidence. Success loses value when one is constantly rewarded for actions that require no effort. The participation trophy is not satisfying to players as it diminishes the pride in winning. Winning means willing to go longer, work harder and give more than anyone else. In fact, losing is also good as it teaches you that you sometimes need to work harder to achieve your goals. Participation trophies capture the fulfillment from the winners and give the unsuccessful side an undeserving amount of success.
Receiving a trophy for losing and showing a lack of effort is exposing millennials to false advertising of the real world. Outside the protected bubble of childhood, not everyone is a winner. As we grow up, showing up for class, completing homework and trying our best in sports become expectations rather than actions worthy of an award. In the real world, there are no sympathy awards. The harder you work for something, the greater you will feel when you achieve it.
Nothing worth having comes easy. Success comes from effort and hard work, not a meaningless participation trophy. Every single accomplishment comes with the decision to try. Unmotivated people should not be recognized for the same thing as motivated people. The longer and harder you work for something, the more you appreciate it when you get it. Ultimately, participation trophies must be eliminated as a norm carried throughout the society we live in today.
Remy Abrams is a senior and Editor-In-Chief of Eastside. She can be identified as the curly-headed girl in sweatpants and a sweatshirt who once wore pink-tinted...
Ben Dover • Dec 12, 2022 at 3:33 pm
I disagerg
h • Mar 23, 2021 at 2:22 pm
The biggest argument against participation trophies is that handing them out may be a sort of overprotection for our youngsters. In other words, we give trophies to kids, regardless of how poorly they performed, so that they don’t feel bad about losing. Kids never get the possibility to experience failure, or to be told from it. They become old, feeling entitled to rewards for simply disclosure.
Dan Gould, a sports psychologist, stated in a very 2017 Spartan NewsRoom article that, “For rewards to figure, they have to be earned. If you’re trying to extend a kid’s motivation, emphasize health or emphasize how fun it’s to maneuver or play ball.” Encouraging children through the everyday benefits of sports shows them that playing sports will be rewarding outside of receiving an actual award. they’ll gain internal motivation to indicate up and act by learning what quantity enjoyment they’ll experience from twiddling with their friends.
Another argument against participation trophies is that they’ll backfire and cause kids to not try as hard because they’ll come to expect a present irrespective of what they are doing. This attitude can then affect the children that actually work hard and win, because they see their efforts being devalued as everyone around them receives the identical award only for being on the sphere. It may also affect the youngsters receiving the participation trophies because, in some cases, the youngsters don’t recognize participation trophies as true awards. during a study by Hilary Levey, one among the kids she interviewed only counted the trophies in his collection that represented a placeholder (1st, 2nd, or 3rd), not only for participation.
To recap, the “participation trophies are bad” side of the talk states that participation trophies can stunt our children’s internal motivation, devalue truth winners during a competition, and are overall an indication of today’s overprotective parenting standards. What does the opposite side need to say?
h • Mar 1, 2021 at 5:49 pm
this is so true
Layla • Dec 1, 2020 at 6:37 pm
This is so true! Hard working need to feel appreciated.
(deleted) • Nov 18, 2019 at 1:42 pm
I think that this is a really pressing matter, and that this is true.
dom • May 9, 2019 at 5:53 pm
there aweful
m • May 3, 2019 at 1:55 pm
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