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Essay On Participation Trophies

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Participation trophies began in the second half of the twentieth century and are hugely apparent in modern day society. These awards started off to be something for the less talented and recognized children that participated in youth sports, a tool used the spare the feelings of children who did not often receive trophies for an exceptional performance themselves. The idea behind the trophies themselves were created with a kind hearted concern for children’s feelings and emotions, however this has developed into something so much more and now in 2017, doing more harm than good. The era of participation trophies must come to an end. This can be done by not just awarding children awards in athletics, but awarding more in other subjects for children …show more content…

Many colleges, such as Utrecht University in the Netherlands and Ohio State University, offer this as a topic for students to study, particularly students majoring in child or human psychology. These students chose this topic to look into and find out more on how this affects people when they are older and well as how participation trophies stimulate and affect mental growth. Both colleges now offer a large understanding of the later psychological effects on children; their research suggests that parents who often dole excessive praise to their children are most likely setting their kid to be hurt by it later on. This idea is applicable to coaches giving excessive praise in the form of a trophy or ribbon. More specifically, Utrecht University's department of psychology states, "They may worry about meeting those high standards and decide not to take on any new challenges." This means children essentially settle, never taking on new challenges because they already know their reward and do not have as strong a motive to drive them into taking on new tasks. This ultimately limits children by such a standard and they will never know what they are truly missing and forever have a shortened motive that can …show more content…

Not everything in life needs to be rewarded or recognized, and it somewhat tarnishes the value of an accomplishment that is earned. If everyone gets one, the people who really did work hard and earn a token of achievement should feel a sense of well deserved pride and inflation. A compromise that would truly and fairly act as a solution for both parties it there should be more awards given out in general. Sports are the main source of childhood awards, and while some schools offer academic awards, the actuality is little in comparison. Sports should not be the only outlet of achievement recognition; if more awards are given for an improvement in or high quality performance of academic subjects such as math, science, social studies, english, foreign languages or even less scholastic areas such as art, music, enrichment, etc. children are more apt to quickly find their strong areas and can better excel in them. This action plan aids all viewpoints of both opposing sides. Trophies are still widely given and worthwhile, which they gain more meaning and value to the students or athletes earning them. Not every child will win an award every time they participate in something, but it is important to instead of dwelling on this occurrence but to instead learn from failure and how to deal with it later in life. A child is more likely to have a more broadened outlook on the world and venture out try new things and experiences if

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