Participation Recognition

Participation trophies are used to reward kids to show them that everyone's a winner. It shows that all they had to do is show up. Is this rewarding system good for the development of our children and the way they look at things competitively? “Trophies for all convey an inaccurate and potentially dangerous life message to children: We are all winners.”- Betty Berden. This quote is true in multiple ways, one being that we start to expect awards and praise just for showing up: Class, practice, etc. These get rid of the competitiveness of a sport or any event and don't show enough appreciation to the kids that are exceptional or quite decent at a sport or class. This is very important because, to the children that excelled, they may feel that they shouldn't get the same reward of the people that didn’t even try. If everyone gets the same reward, it also gets rid of competition all together. Participation should already recognized anyway, so why start ignoring the star players and

Others, such as Parker, make a very interesting point on a child’s self-esteem, but a child needs to learn from their mistakes and learn at a young age that not everything is given to them. This mentality could make them struggle later in life and make them learn the harder way. Getting rid of participation trophies also raise the competitive nature of the sport or activity. When people realize that there is a prize for winning, they will work harder than the people knowing that they won’t get anything out of it. These trophies also don’t mean as much to the children because they know that identical awards sit in the rooms of children all over their town, state, and even more, their country. These dozens of trophies have no value to the children because they did not earn it by working hard and