The buzzer goes off, signaling the end of the game. You look up at the scoreboard to see a final score of 55-4. The kids walk off the court and are greeted by the Mom in charge of snacks for the game. She hands them a bag of goldfish, a juicebox and a participation trophy.
As a collective whole, we are creating a false reality of how the real world works after youth sports. We are creating an expectation that even if you have a mediocre or poor performance, you will still be positively reinforced for it.
The hard truth is that maybe you aren’t as good as you were told. And that is OK.
By giving children participation trophies, we are creating an environment that is solely based on extrinsic motivation. Children are no longer participating in sports or activities because they actually enjoy it, but because they want to receive praise, or in this case: a plastic trophy. We are creating an environment where we are teaching kids to participate in things if you will get something for doing it.
Unfortunately, that’s just not how the real world works.
After children reach a certain age and are met with the truth of the real world, which is sometimes you will lose, all the trophies that are lined up neatly on a shelf above their bed will start to lose the meaning they once had.
It’s important to realize and acknowledge that everyone has different weaknesses and strengths in life. That’s what makes us different. When we lie to kids and tell them they are good at something they aren’t, it ruins their chances to be successful later on in life.
Some may argue that handing out participation trophies to kids after they complete a task, season or game is beneficial towards boosting a child’s self esteem. But, in the long run this can end up being more detrimental towards the child’s self-esteem as they grow up and mature because they have been told they are “winners” no matter what. When you lose a game it is an essential life lesson that all children need to learn. By losing, children can learn to work harder next time in order to have a different outcome: winning.
Therefore, society needs to stop viewing everyone as winners and start viewing losing as an opportunity to grow and learn.
Society needs to stop sugar-coating the real world and instead let kids learn how to adapt from failure and mistakes. Not everyone is always going to be a winner and kids need to start learning that. The first step is to get rid of participation trophies.
