People love complaining about how soft and weak the current generation is. Very few things epitomize this more than the disdain for participation trophies. Some seem to think that getting a reward just for trying is turning our kids into wimps who will never push themselves to achieve anything great. But is that really true?
My son is about to head into his second year of soccer. At the end of the first year, he and everybody else in the program got a certificate for completing the program. Was he excited about it? Yes. Is this the first step toward him becoming a shiftless, noncompetitive loser? I highly doubt it.
In fact, my son is so obsessed with winning that he tries to turn everything into a contest of some sort. My wife and I have had to remind him that dinner isn’t a race to see who finishes first. This is not a kid who is satisfied with a participation certificate.
Complaints about participation awards get made frequently and vehemently, but I’m not sure that the logic is necessarily there. For one thing, it’s not like kids are getting huge, towering trophies just for showing up. For another thing, this isn’t a new concept – it’s existed for several generations, at least.
I got a participation award of sorts when I was part of a regional spelling bee. My team lost, but the teachers took us out for pizza as a reward anyway. We got announced to the school as the team that finished in third place, as though we had earned bronze medals.
Did this consolation prize take away my competitive spirit or tell me that I didn’t need to try? Not at all. The line between winning and receiving a participation award is very clear. Nobody likes losing, even if you get a red ribbon for second place.
The argument against participation awards is that it creates a soft culture where nobody tries to get ahead because they can’t fail. Based on the fact that kids will turn anything into a competition, from who gets dressed first to who’s the tallest, I don’t agree with that.
On the flip side, I can actually see some benefits to participation trophies. Specifically, they provide recognition of effort and help reinforce the fact that winning isn’t everything. And that’s a lesson many adults don’t seem to realize – just look at how many times referees get death threats over blown calls.
Can trophies stop people from overreacting about sports? No, because there’s always going to be stupid people out there. But personally, I’d rather give kids recognition when they try their best but still come up short rather than continue pushing the idea that a simple game is a “win or else” situation.
In the end, I’m not really strongly for participation trophies, but I don’t agree that they’re a sign that our society is going downhill. If there’s a competition, people want to win – that’s human nature. Enforcing the idea that winning isn’t as important as the effort you put in seems like a lesson worth teaching.
Where do you stand in the participation trophy debate?
CommentImages: George Hodan and Peter Griffin
