Participation Backwards

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Recommended: The negative effects participation trophies have on young kids

Participation trophies given to children has been a controversial topic amongst all parents. Some say that one should be rewarded based off of effort, other than talent. Others say that one should not be rewarded for failure. Giving participation trophies to children do nothing other than set their life up with complacency. Children who receive participation trophies growing up respond negatively to failure, underachieve when they have the chance, and collapse at the first sign of difficulty. Children who are awarded with participation trophies throughout their life are the same children who respond negatively to failure. Since they are accustomed to having success in everything they do, they will not know how to react when they fail. They …show more content…

This is a similar attitude to that of their parents, although the parents are clearer that participation trophies ultimately devalue a trophy that a child really earn. This results in all of the children feeling like winners, which is a bad thing (Johnson 326).
“Winning” should be excluded to just the kids who actually earn it, and this quote explains exactly why. If one does not get used to failure to learn from it and get better, then they are not doing anything beneficial for themselves. They are just prolonging the feeling of success and when reality hits them, they will fold …show more content…

They are accustomed to everything being given to them, rather than them earning what they deserve. So with that being said, these children will not like the thought of completing a task that is actually difficult. They will try once, but after they fail, they will not try again. This kind of ties in with my first main point on how children who were given participation trophies in their childhood respond to failure negatively. Anyways, they are not ready for the harsh reality of completing a difficult task without multiple tries before they

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