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Kacey Jorgenson

Professor Pettay

English 112

24 February 2022

Should Children Be Given Participation Trophies?

In today's society children are awarded for simple participation for everything they do.

There's many debates on whether or not this is menatlly healthy and/or necessary for children of

any age. Children are given participation trophies and awards for everything from academics to

sports and are sometimes believed to be over awarded and celebrated. Children should not be

given participation awards because it makes them more dependent on others' thoughts of them,

ruins their work ethic, and causes them to believe they should be rewarded for everything they

do, eventually destroying their chances for success in the real world.

Children should not be given participation awards because it destroys their work ethic

and makes them feel constantly deserving of reward for everything they do. When kids are given

everything throughout their childhood they grow up to think that this is the way life works.

Ashley Merryman the co-author of “NatureShock '': New Thinking About Children and “Top

dog”: The Science of Winning and Losing says “We must focus on process and progress, not

results and rewards” (Ashley). I feel this statement correlates with my argument because it brings

up the same idea that rewards are not the most important thing for a child or for anyone in

general and that you need to work hard to get the things you want. Kids need to be taught that
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success takes hard work and commitment and that if they want to be rewarded they need to put

in the effort in order to earn the award. Participation awards destroy this work ethic and take

away praise from the children that actually deserve it. Something else that we need to teach our

kids is that “Kids need to know they don’t have to win every time. It’s O.K. to lose, to make a

mistake”. (Ashley). If kids don't always win it will make them want to work harder, Losing will

give them the drive and the want to work harder and put in my time and effort so that they will

hopefully win the next time. Always winning gets boring and gives off the impression that you

don't have to work hard or continue to put in extra effort to win, initially destroying work ethic.

How parents, coaches, and other adults around children teach and act regarding

participation leaves a big mark on their feelings about awards. Kids' feelings about winning and

getting awards whether it be first, second, third, or just participation mainly derives from what

parents and coaches teach them about awards and how they act when they receive awards. If a

parent or coach tells a young athlete that participation is a crappy award and it means nothing

then they will work harder towards receiving a First, second, or third place trophy or certificate.

On the opposite end, if they praise a kid for a simple participation award then they won't care to

shoot for anything higher because they are already getting attention and good responses to the

award they received. A good example of this reasoning aain comes from Ashley Merryman, “A

recent study found that if parents thought failure was debilitating, their kids adopted that

perspective. If parents believed overcoming failure and mistakes made you stronger, then their

children believed it, too” (Ashley). Kids believe in the same thing the trusted adults around them

do and they shape their thoughts and trustworthiness around these adults' ideas so how

coaches and parents act about the type and execution of the awards the children receive will

rub off on the athlete as well. Overpraised kids can also make for narcissistic adults late in life,
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and also hurts children with already low self-esteem issues. This idea was also argued by

Parker Abate, A sophomore athlete studying communication at Misericordia University and who

has played sports since the young age of 5 who is now a player and a coach, by stating that

“Self-esteem is a big part of one’s childhood. Watching a peer receive a trophy and not receiving

one yourself can be degrading. Any kind of honor can make a young kid feel as if he or she

meant something to the team, and that could boost the child’s self-confidence -- children today

need as much of that as they can get in our society” (Parker). If kids receive trophies for barely

doing anything it is not going to make them feel good about themselves, but make it seem as

though everyone feels bad for them, If kids have to work hard in order to get an award they will

understand the positive outcomes of hardwork and push themselves to be a better person and

player. Overall parents and coaches need to think about pushing kids harder to earn things

rather than hand them everything because it can make for a tougher dose of reality as they

grow up and cause unwanted narcissistic or drawn back behavior from their children/players

over time.

There are lots of people who oppose the opinion that kids shouldnt be given participation

awards because they believe that overall they do less harm than good. One example would be

Eric Priceman who argues that, “The whole notion that we are creating a nation of wimps

because we hand out participation trophies is only the case if we want it to be. These awards

only detract from creating a competitive society if we let them do so” (Eric). In other word, Eric

Priceman believes that giving out participation awards is healthy for children because they

detract and/or get rid of the excessive and, what some think to be, unhealthy competitiveness

that exists in today's society. I completely disagree with this belief because competition has

existed for many, many years and has never hurt anyone. The reason competition causes so

many problems for children today is because of things such as participation trophies that make
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them softer and cause them to think that they deserve an award and a sense of

accomplishment for every little thing that they do. Another statement from the opposing side

comes from a journal article by New Horizons is “Competitive life skills not only help youth to

succeed in sporting activities but if transferred can also contribute to the individual’s success in a

non-sports setting.” (Role of Sports). In my opinion regarding this statement, competitive life

skills are only helpful if they are actually competitive and not passive. Kids need to be taught and

shown how things work in the real world even from a young age so that they can be prepared and

are set up for success. Awarding kids for everything they do will only hurt them in the future;

only true winners should be giving real awards. If you create the behavior of being a winner

and/or having to win all the time you’ll also create the behavior of a crybaby and a sore loser

when they suddenly can't win everything and are not rewarded constantly as they get older.

In conclusion, children should not be given participation trophies and awards, we need to

set kids up for success in the real world and teach them real life skills such as hard

work,determination, and fair competitiveness in order for them to succeed. Participation awards

ruin and diminish all of these needy traits and turn children into needy, narcissistic, and thought

to be deserving adults. Many factors such as parents and coaches, determination, and peers that

affect how a child acts about winning and losing. Kids need to know it's ok to lose and that with

hard work and time you can be a true winner and earn awards that are actually worth something.
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Works cited

● Works Cited

“Role of Sports in the Development of Hard Work as a Life Skill - Former

Athletes’ Perspectives.” New Horizons (1992-4399), vol. 13, no. 2,

July 2019, pp. 79–92. EBSCOhost,

doi-org.eztcc.vccs.edu/10.2.9270/NH.13.2(19).05.

● Abate, Parker. “In Youth Sports, Participation Trophies Send a Powerful Message.”

Room for Debate, The New York Times Company,

OCTOBER 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate.

Accessed 17 February 2022.

● Priceman, Eric. “There’s Nothing Wrong With Encouraging Participation With an Award.”

Room for Debate, The New York Times Company,

UPDATED OCTOBER 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate.

Accessed 17 February 2022.

● Merryman, Ashley. “Forget Trophies, Let Kids Know It’s O.K. to Lose.”
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Room for Debate, The New York Times Company,

OCTOBER 6, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate.

Accessed 17 February 2022.