Participation Trophies Are A Good Thing

[baxus]

1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

What is funny to me is that since I was a kid (I'm now 27) this has been an issue in the UK, with grumpy old people insisting it will destroy our competitiveness. My participation medal generation has been far more successful at the Olympics than their pre participation medal generation, yet they still keep spouting the same thing, despite all the evidence to the contrary. 

Yeah, and Team GB's Olympic success has nothing to do with funding system put in place by exactly those grumpy old people. It's 100% down to your generation getting participation medals.

Btw, GB's most medal winning sports in the Olympics are rowing and cycling (maybe not in that order), and unless I'm very much mistaken those sports don't award participation trophies.  

[Ormond]

On 9/1/2018 at 4:10 PM, Altherion said:

On the contrary, adult life is very much about competition. You are right in that the criteria for winning are almost never as clear-cut as in the contests of children, but nevertheless, a fraction of applicants will get into a university and the rest will not, a single candidate will get the job and the rest will not, etc. In fact, as inequality increases and the middle class shrinks, the competition will get more and more intense.

Don't bet money on the "steady" part -- this is the kind of person that gets laid off during an economic downturn or when the company decides to outsource the work.

I disagree: as long as it is properly explained, the failure itself serves as motivation. If I walk away with nothing, it motivates me to either understand what I did poorly and how I can do it better or, if it's clear that this hopeless, to go do something I'm better at.

Don't get me wrong: I don't think participation trophies are doing some great harm and I grew up as they were becoming commonplace so I have a few of them, but I think the lesson regarding competition is best learned sooner rather than later.

A "fraction of applicants" will get into one of the few elite colleges and universities out there. There are plenty of universities where all you need to be admitted as a freshman is a high school diploma. 

Whether failure serves as "motivation" or not is highly dependent on one's past experiences and personality. There are many people who do use failure as a learning experience. There are plenty of others who end up with a lesson in "learned helplessness" and believe the failure shows they will never be able to win at anything, so why try?

[Theda Baratheon]

I actually was very good at sports in school; running long distance, sprinting, long jump, rowing, and a few others and I went to a lot of competitions and so I liked competing but I was never #1. Sometimes I was #2, mainly I was #3 or #4. So I usually did pretty well actually, was always ONE of the best but never THE best and you know what I think that was way more fun and healthier for me to still be praised for that than having to be first or nothing. I was sad when my parents couldn’t watch me and they often couldn’t but I used to just like being active. I’m the laziest P.OS now lol but that didn’t come naturally - the top class for P.E was full of horrible bullies who were obviously always being told to be number one or nothing and it killed it for me. People would be awful to me, so cruel, unless they needed me on their sports team and then it was all sweetness. 

THAT attitude was way more unhealthy and has been 100% more damaging to my adult life than getting participation trophies a few times when I came 4th or 5th at something. 

[mankytoes]

43 minutes ago, baxus said:

Yeah, and Team GB's Olympic success has nothing to do with funding system put in place by exactly those grumpy old people. It's 100% down to your generation getting participation medals.

Btw, GB's most medal winning sports in the Olympics are rowing and cycling (maybe not in that order), and unless I'm very much mistaken those sports don't award participation trophies.  

I think you've misunderstood my point, I'm not saying the participation trophies led to Olympic success, I'm saying there is no evidence whatsoever that they hinder Olympic success. I'm not advocating for participation trophies, I found mine to be pointless. I just think it's a non issue promoted by the tedious people who exist in every generation and love to go on about how much better the youth was in their day. 

I have absolutely no idea, I've not done either competitively, but I assume some cycle events give some form of participation trophy? Many foot races do, even for adults. 

[Erik of Hazelfield]

Like mankytoes, I got a bunch of participation trophies when I was a kid and never valued them highly. 

But what if the lesson was not that showing up was good enough, but that there were people who thought that showing up was good enough? Even if I didn’t take any pride in receiving a medal that every participant got, mum and dad were proud of me, and that meant something. Getting the medal somehow strengthened the idea that I made people happy by running this race. 

[mankytoes]

1 hour ago, Erik of Hazelfield said:

Like mankytoes, I got a bunch of participation trophies when I was a kid and never valued them highly. 

But what if the lesson was not that showing up was good enough, but that there were people who thought that showing up was good enough? Even if I didn’t take any pride in receiving a medal that every participant got, mum and dad were proud of me, and that meant something. Getting the medal somehow strengthened the idea that I made people happy by running this race. 

That's a good point. My parents weren't crazy pushy or anything (lets be honest, you can tell straight away 90% of kids will never be professionals at sports) but they did always encourage and support me, I guess that's a big reward. If your parents aren't doing that, maybe the medals might mean more to you.

[BigFatCoward]

There are two types of sports, fun and competitive. Neither is more important. But in competitive sports you shouldn't get a trophy for turning up.

[Iskaral Pust]

I think participation medals (not big trophies) at young ages (<10) are a good idea because the main point at that age is to encourage individuals to participate and overcome their general reticence about competition.  But they shouldn't be awarded with fake fanfare or portrayed as "everyone is a winner".  It's fine to say that it takes grit/guts/effort/determination to turn up and compete -- especially when you know you're probably not going to win -- and that's worthy of recognition and probably more important than being the actual winner.  Don't try to pretend that the kid in last place actually won the race.

Once kids get into their teens, the focus should shift to their commitment to their team/club/etc.  Even individual sports usually group competitors from a single school/club/trainer/etc.  At that point there should be a participation memento that rewards attendance and commitment, and gives kids some tangible memory of the experience and being part of that collective.  But more like a badge of honor than a medal or trophy.  That could be presented by the competition organizer or by the team/club/trainer.

 

I still have a fond memory of a memento distributed by one of my teams.  One season when my men's soccer team reached a play-off final at the end of the season, we were decimated by vacations and injuries.  We only had seven players show up for the final against our bitter rivals (we had met them in the last two finals and won one each).  They had a full team of eleven plus subs.  We played out a dogged rearguard tactic and scored a winning goal on a break-away.  It was ugly football that Mourinho would have loved but with only seven players it was the best we could do and it felt like a huge victory.  We celebrated like lunatics at the end and rushed off to get very drunk.  The team got to retain the trophy but a week later the manager distributed mementos to the seven of us along with a speech about badges for battles on regimental flags (ex-Marine).  It was an innocuous little memento but always triggered a positive memory.  One of the seven was a colleague of mine and he kept his ever after glued to the top of his monitor in his office. 

[Errant Bard]

I participated in a few judo competition when I was around 10. I still have the medals somewhere, I think. If I try to slip back into my young self thinking, I feel I would have considered such participation trophy meaningless, what mattered was winning, it was not getting a trinket (heh, I once cried when I placed third, when getting the medal. the shame. not sure competition was for me.) Gosh, thinking about it, I had one or two cups that are probably rusting somewhere in a junkyard by now.

Anyway, what I really hung to were my belts. they meant something, about me, and everyone got one, though not the same colours. That's the best participation tokens. Rewards are meaningless if they have no meaning. Or so I feel, but no harm done when you give free tote bags for coming.

[Spring Bass]

I always thought participation trophies were for the parents, so they could have mementos of their kid playing a sport when they were young to stick on the shelf next to the family photos and baby pictures. 

[btfu806]

I can obviously only speak from personal experience and personal perspective but I am very much against participating trophies. When my generation started doing it (when I was young) I hated receiving them. I didn't want to be rewarded for not winning. Then when I did finally win at something, everyone got a trophy and took something out of receiving a prize.
ow you can say, but you got a bigger trophy or w/e. But it was never about the size of the trophy, it was about having a tangible item that shows how I did something no one else could do at that time. Personally, now being older I would watch my younger cousins play sports and receive participating trophies and if they didn't receive anything they would throw a fit (not my cousins in particular, the entire team). It seems that those trophies didn't help teach children to be graceful at losing (personally, I think an important skill). 

Anyway, this isn't to say that I think we should get rid of all of them, or that we should have them or w/e. More just personal observation. And obviously, I am working with a crazy small sample size here in the grand scheme of life and participating trophies. 

[HexMachina]

On 9/4/2018 at 8:11 PM, Errant Bard said:

I participated in a few judo competition when I was around 10. I still have the medals somewhere, I think. If I try to slip back into my young self thinking, I feel I would have considered such participation trophy meaningless, what mattered was winning, it was not getting a trinket (heh, I once cried when I placed third, when getting the medal. the shame. not sure competition was for me.) Gosh, thinking about it, I had one or two cups that are probably rusting somewhere in a junkyard by now.

Anyway, what I really hung to were my belts. they meant something, about me, and everyone got one, though not the same colours. That's the best participation tokens. Rewards are meaningless if they have no meaning. Or so I feel, but no harm done when you give free tote bags for coming.

For me it was my swimming badges, which I would proudly sew onto my towel myself

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

On 9/4/2018 at 11:04 AM, BigFatCoward said:

There are two types of sports, fun and competitive. Neither is more important. But in competitive sports you shouldn't get a trophy for turning up.

I agree. Give out trophies for the top three finishers, and depending on the sport, maybe something that can be put on some gear to show that you were at the competition, but not an actual trophies. 

ETA:

I gained a healthy dislike for participation trophies in the 6th grade. I was a really good baseball player, and at that age there were two levels for kids in 4th through 6th grade, majors and minors. Majors were selected after a string of mini-camps and then everyone else who still wants to get played goes to the minors. I made majors in both 4th and 5th grade, but was put in minors in the 6th grade due to missing the camps because I was at camp. Because I was the only kid who had been in majors before (you almost never go down a level once you make the cut), I was placed on the worst game. We won our first game when I, like a gangster, stole home base in the ninth, We lost every other game that year, and we were blown out nearly every time. There were two other good players and a whole lot of dreadful players. At the end of the year, they handed out trophies to everyone. I got MVP, and the two other kids got Best Pitcher and Pest 4th Grader. The latter raised my eyebrow, and then they just started making up titles for the trophies. Best Hustler, Best Pinch Hitter (there were no pinch hitters), etc etc. It got down right offensive when some kid got something like Best Spirit.

Long story short, that MVP trophy went straight into the garbage once I got home.

[Theda Baratheon]

I thought participation trophies was just a buzzword lol - didn’t know we were talking about actual trophies - how could the schools afford all of that  

[Altherion]

15 minutes ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I thought participation trophies was just a buzzword lol - didn’t know we were talking about actual trophies - how could the schools afford all of that  

They're dirt cheap plastic with parts painted to look like metal and other parts that look like marble. It's actually pretty cool how they've managed to make them so cheap.

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, Altherion said:

They're dirt cheap plastic with parts painted to look like metal and other parts that look like marble. It's actually pretty cool how they've managed to make them so cheap.

God love the Chinese. 

[Theda Baratheon]

10 hours ago, Altherion said:

They're dirt cheap plastic with parts painted to look like metal and other parts that look like marble. It's actually pretty cool how they've managed to make them so cheap.

Oh we had ribbons and little paper certificates for participation which was nice and then the actual trophy was...well an actual heavy trophy engraved with someone’s name. 

[Theda Baratheon]

I thought participation trophy was a buzzword for receiving a little souvenir for joining in like a paper or ribbon which I think is nice and for some kids will mean a lot (others, not so much) in terms of actual trophies and medals that should be for top 3 just in terms of competition when we’re talking about teenagers. For little children I think most of them will be happy with a ribbon lol. If they’re a little CHILD and they’re already sad at not being 1st and being the only one praised  then I’d say that’s a bit unhealthy anyway 

[HexMachina]

3 hours ago, Theda Baratheon said:

I thought participation trophy was a buzzword for receiving a little souvenir for joining in like a paper or ribbon which I think is nice and for some kids will mean a lot (others, not so much) in terms of actual trophies and medals that should be for top 3 just in terms of competition when we’re talking about teenagers. For little children I think most of them will be happy with a ribbon lol. If they’re a little CHILD and they’re already sad at not being 1st and being the only one praised  then I’d say that’s a bit unhealthy anyway 

My personal experience is similar to yours really, having received participation 'certificates' which basically just say thanks for being here. Only experience of participation medals I had was on the times I've done charity runs and got a little medal. Don't see an issue with that though, it's not as if charity runs are professional races in any case where 1st 2nd 3rd are the goal

[Theda Baratheon]

2 hours ago, HelenaExMachina said:

My personal experience is similar to yours really, having received participation 'certificates' which basically just say thanks for being here. Only experience of participation medals I had was on the times I've done charity runs and got a little medal. Don't see an issue with that though, it's not as if charity runs are professional races in any case where 1st 2nd 3rd are the goal

Makes sense - I think we’re almost the same age and both British - Id find it weirder if my school was the odd one out lol!