Should Everyone Get A Trophy By Lauren Tarshis

Thirteen-year-old Jordan Walker has been receiving participation trophies since she was five. When she was six she was on a basketball team. All she did was run up and down the court; she didn’t even touch the ball. She got participation trophies and loss motivation. Now she doesn’t play sports. Giving every kid a trophy was a movement that started in California in the eighties to build children’s self-esteem. This has since backfired causing kids to become arrogant and narcissistic. Trophies should only be given to the people who worked the hardest and played the best to give the trophy meaning, to make kids realize they can’t win every time, and to give the kids something worth working hard for.

Trophies shouldn’t be given to everyone because then they lose meaning. For example, in Losing is Good for You by Ashley Merryman, they talk

about how many awards are given out in a southern California organization saying, “In Southern California, a regional branch of the American Youth Soccer hands out roughly 3,500 awards each season --- each player gets one, while around a third get two.” When every kid gets the same trophy, kids do not feel special so the best kids on the team feel they are equal to the kids that don’t do anything. This results in a lack of motivation for the better kids. As Dweck says in Should Everyone Get a Prize? by Brenda Iasevoli, “The Trophy has to stand for something, if we give a trophy to everyone, then the award has no value.” This is true in a way that, if you give a trophy to the few best kids, you make them feel proud and accomplished. If you give that trophy to everyone, no one feels unique and no one feels proud. By seeing the proud faces of their peers who got awards they will strive to do better in the future so they can get an award. Over all too much of something is a bad thing and giving everyone a trophy makes it lose meaning and motivation.
Another reason to oppose giving trophies to all is the fact that in life, people can’t win every time.

For instance, in this article by Brenda Iasevoli it talks about reality saying, “They’ll soon realize that only one soccer team wins the World Cup, and how only one football team wins the Super Bowl.” By giving kids trophies for nothing they are not prepared for the real world and will expect to win everything. The article Should Everyone Get a Trophy by Lauren Tarshis also talks about the effects of participation trophies saying “In life, most people are not awarded for simply doing what’s required. A student doesn’t get an A just for going to class. An employee doesn’t get a raise just for arriving to work on time.” This quote is another great example of why you can’t give out trophies to kids if the don’t do the work. They will go into the workplace expecting to get what they when they won’t get that unless they work hard. As a result of kids getting trophies when they don’t win they think that they will be able to get things later in life without winning, which is why people need to stop giving out trophies to

losers.
A third reason why participation trophies should be outlawed is that they with them kids have nothing to work for. For example Ashley Merryman says in an article “ If children know they will automatically get an award, what is the impetus for improvement? Why bother learning problem-solving, when there are never obstacles to begin with?” This is exactly the problem. When kids know they don’t have to work they won’t. If you take away the participation trophies the will work because they have something to work for. The method of not working because you don’t have to will not get you very far in life like Ashley Merryman says “In college, those who’ve grown up receiving endless awards do the requisite work, but don’t see the need to do it well.” This is exactly what happens when kids spend their lives being rewarded for things not worth the rewards. Kids lose motivation because why work when you don’t have to? All in all, participation trophies take away motivation contrary to popular belief and keep kids from reaching full potential.
Participation trophies can be put off as a way to encourage a kid or make them feel good. A little plastic cup is not that expensive and will help boost their self esteem right? Wrong. According to Ashley Merryman, “Trophy and award sales are now an estimated $3 billion-a-year industry in the United States and Canada!” The money that could be spent on things to help better the team like new sports equipment or better gear. Instead it’s being spend on little trophies to give to kids so that they don’t work hard. If people want to better a team, stop spending money on trophies and start buying better equipment.
Kids around the world should not get awards for participating in a sport, only the top players and the most improved should. The reason for this is so trophies have meaning, so kids can realize they can’t always be winners, and so kids continue to work hard. Because of these reasons and many more, it is imperative that participation trophies are banished from kids competitions to give the next generation a chance to know how to work hard and feel the true feeling of success.