Grady1

Brennan Grady

Mrs. Cramer

English Comp I Pd. 4

07 Dec. 2018

The Damage of Participation Trophies

There are billions of dollars' worth of trophies sold each year in the United States. 1These

trophies are not all earned; most are handed out to children regularly. This can be from sporting

teams, science projects, academic accomplishments, and even behavioral achievements.

Participation trophies have been debated since their inception because people do not agree on

whether they help children or not. Participation trophies should be eliminated because they make

children blind to true success, and they eradicate the learning experiences of losing.

Firstly, participation trophies make children believe that success is the same as

participation, which is constructing a false sense of true success. Participation trophies are given

to constantly show children that they are always winners, even if they lose (Merryman). Children

should not be given participation trophies because it teaches children that success comes purely

from showing up, which is not true. Success comes from putting effort into an activity, not from

just participation. Too much praise can cause a child to panic at the first experience of difficulty,

thus causing the child to act inappropriately during a more difficult situation. “But after such

praise of their innate abilities, they collapse at the first experience of difficulty. Demoralized by

their failure, they say they’d rather cheat than risk failing again” (Merryman). Participation

trophies create a false reality of success to children, as a result makes kids fear the ambition to

1Logos-The statistical data that we are spending money on trophies is a logical statement,
which makes the reader wonder why people buy these trophies.
 Grady2

take challenges necessary to succeed. Giving children participation trophies teaches them that

losing is the same as winning, which creates a false sense of understanding of what success truly

is (“The Harm Done”). Participation trophies are making kids hallucinate the reality of success,

resulting in the inability for children to understand what winning really is.

Conversely, people also believe that children will continue in the activity if they get

awards, because it encourages them to stay involved. Children may stay involved in the activity,

but will not be involved in the activity. 2 “Those who are outperformed know it and give up,

while those who do well, feel cheated when they aren’t recognized for their accomplishments.

They, too, may give up” (Merryman). When kids get to a certain point in life, they will recognize

they are not as skilled or knowledgeable of the activity in which they are involved. The

participation rewards do not keep children involved in activities because the idea of always

receiving the same reward and not knowing what to improve on will cause them to give up.

Children who incorporate effort into an activity get the same reward as children who do not. This

situation causes the hard-working children to question their ability and results in the hardest

working children deciding not to continue (Abrams). If all children are receiving the same

reward, they become confused at what skills should be rewarded or not. Their efforts toward the

activity can diminish. Participation awards are causing this lack of involvement. This creates a

situation where children become less involved in an activity.

Although some people believe participation trophies benefit children, they can eliminate

the positive effects of losing. Some professional athletes say that losing was the best thing for

them because they learned from the mistakes they made (Merryman and Perez). Even

2Antithesis- Involvement in an activity is being contradicted. Involvement means they may be in

the activity but not actually put effort in.
 Grady3

professional athletes admit that losing helped them to learn. An example of a professional is

Michael Jordan, one of the most well-known basketball athletes. His experience in losing makes

him successful because of the lessons he has learned from failing.

“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career,” Michael Jordan once said,

“I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game

winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And

that is why I succeed” (Kilgour). 3

Children lose this experience because of participation trophies. They do not know when they

should learn. Losing in life helps people learn from their mistakes. Facing failure in life is

important because it will happen at some point, and the sooner children are exposed to it, the

better they will accept and learn from it (Ray). Children that receive participation trophies are not

getting the experience of failure. They are not learning from their mistakes if they receive

rewards, regardless of their performance. "They may worry about meeting those high standards

and decide not to take on any new challenges" (Weller). If children keep receiving participation

trophies, they will not want to tackle any new challenges that could possibly cause them to fail.

Children are not learning from fear of losing, because participation trophies are given to children

that want to keep escaping the reality of learning from failing. “When children make mistakes,

our job should not be to spin those losses into decorated victories. Instead, our job is to help kids

overcome setbacks, to help them see that progress over time is more important than a particular

win or loss” (Merryman). Children are reasoning that mistakes are not acceptable, but losing

allows children to learn from them. They can learn that losing happens in life and the progress

3Ethos- this is ethos where the credibility of the professional athlete shows that important
experienced people know it works.
 Grady4

they build, makes them more experienced. Children need to learn the life lessons and giving

rewards for participation is not preparing them for reality.

However, some people believe that participation rewards should be given to children to

reward them on their effort to give them motivation. Yet, If children know they will

automatically get an award, what is the motivation for improvement? Why bother learning

problem-solving skills, when there are never obstacles to begin with? If children get an award,

they believe that there is no motivation to improve their skills in the activity because there is no

challenge to put forth effort (Merryman). Children believe that there is nothing that needs to be

improved on because they received awards for their effort. Awards can motivate children but

giving participation awards out undervalues them, which causes children to underachieve

(Merryman). The overuse of these rewards creates the idea that children are going to get a

reward no matter how well they do. When kids get overly praised and rewarded for their efforts

with participation rewards, they can become over confident and presumptuous (Perez and

Merryman). The participation rewards are causing children to act in an immature way because of

the overuse of motivation from the participation rewards. Participation trophies should not be

given to children based off effort because it causes children to lose motivation toward that

activity.

In conclusion, children should not be given participation trophies because they cause

children to become blind to the idea of what true success is, and they take away the learning

experiences of failure to children that will need the experience later in life. Participation rewards

do not give children the right idea of success and learning experiences they need later in life.

Participation trophies should not be used to motivate children because these rewards have the

opposite effect. The damage of participation rewards creates unsuccessful results.

 Grady5

Works Cited
Abrams, Remy. “Why Participation Trophies Must Be Eliminated.” Eastside, Eastside

Highschool, eastside-online.org/opinions/why-participation-trophies-must-be-eliminated/.

Web. 28 Nov. 2018

Kilgour, Kevin. “Participation Trophy Debate Exudes Toxic Mentality.” The Emory Wheel, 19

Jan. 2017, emorywheel.com/participation-trophy-debate-exudes-toxic-mentality/.Web. 28

Nov. 2018

Merryman, Ashley. “Losing Is Good for You.”

teachers.sduhsd.net/mgaughen/docs/Merryman.Losing.pdf . Google Scholar, n.d. Web.

27 Nov. 2018.

Perez, Jorge, and Ashley Merryman. "Should Everyone Get a Trophy?" New York Times

Upfront, 19 Feb. 2018, p. 22+. Academic OneFile,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A528710564/AONE?u=pl1949&sid=AONE&xid=0b

9cebf9. Accessed 27 Sept. 2018.

 Grady6

Ray, Mark. "Failure is an option: raising children in a 'participation trophy' society." Scouting,

Mar.-Apr. 2015, p. 20+. Research in Context, http://link.galegroup.com. Web. 28 Nov.

2018.

“The Harm Done By Participation Trophies.” Intercollegiate Studies Institute: Educating for

Liberty, The Vanderbilt Torch,, home.isi.org. Web. 28 Nov. 2018.

Weller, Chris. "Two Words That Could Hurt Your Kids: Nice Job." Newsweek, 3 Jan. 2014, p. 1.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,

http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A354567025/OVIC?u=pl1949&sid=OVIC&xid=0b4

058bd. Accessed 29 Nov. 2018.