Are Youth Sports Become Successful In Achieving Children's Success?

In “Losing is Good for You,” Ashley Merryman argues that society should stop handing out trophies for participation and instead let your child loose sometimes. Merryman states, “today, participation trophies and prizes are almost a given, as children are constantly assured that they are winners.” She later goes on and says that children who are given so much praise will crack “at the first experience of difficulty.” In her opinion, she does not believe that every child should be given a trophy because it will affect how they handle a different task. She claims that children would be better off losing than winning, and she also think that children should not get a trophy for everything they compete in.

In “Losing is Good for You”, Ashley Merryman instills the idea that society celebrates the essence of success that children achieve in any aspect of their life whether they deserve it or not. Merryman further explains that by celebrating success or, more importantly, the idea that every child is a winner, society takes away the fundamental ideas of hard work. Merryman states that as society limits the opportunity for children to experience failure, this leads to the destruction of the core beliefs of what is the true meaning of winning is and undermines overall determination, and it lowers the desire for children to work hard.

Merryman voices “A recent study found if parents thought failure was debilitating, their kids adopted that perspective” (Merryman). It is the parent’s job to teach their children how to accept participation awards correctly. That losing is not that bad. Merryman goes on saying “If parents believed overcoming failure and mistakes make you stronger, then their children believed it, too” (Merryman). That statement pressures the idea that whatever the parent’s opinion on the matter is transferred to the kid. That kid will go on to work harder and not need the participation trophies to be an objective. The success of the children depends on the

A child decides to join a tee-ball team. During the season, he sits on the ground and picks grass in the outfield. At the end of the season, this child gets an award: best flower picker! Some may say that this child just needed some self-esteem to help him get along. In reality, this child got a reward for doing nothing, even for not doing what he was supposed to. When children, such as this one, receive pointless awards, they assume all rewards come with no effort put in, they expect everything in life to come easily, and they don’t learn how to work diligently to earn rewards.

“Sending him home empty-handed at the end of a hard-fought season won’t help him learn the lesson of losing, it will teach him early that there’s no value in the attempt” (Zadrozny). Prizes such as trophies and ribbons are a controversial topic in society. Some believe that not enough are handed out to children while others believe that too many are handed out. Trophies are a symbol of victory and triumph, but do not forget that children just want to feel part of a team even though they are not good enough. Putting forth an honest effort is important, and doing well is the habit on which they will be repeatedly evaluated in life. Even though some believe trophies are not good, they give a boost of confidence while keeping children happy and

In the article “Rich in Thought: Not Every Olympian Gets Medal,” Richard Paloma mentioned the increasingly self-congratulatory society, which is insisting on the “everyone gets a trophy” custom, particularly in many youth sports league and schools. For instance, the schools which have some “commencement” ceremony and awards to make the students feel special by just moving along to the next grade. The author believes that to build children’s self-esteem, a child must be taught to accept failure and learn from his or her failure to accomplish goals.

Does frivolously giving trophies to children make them into better adults or take away their will to give their best? Giving trophies out every time a child participates in an activity has just become a way of life; from receiving 12th and 13th place ribbons at field days to receiving participation trophies for tee ball and soccer. Children should have to earn what they receive, and if they lose then the hurt feelings they may have will just help them grow in to well-rounded adults that are able to cope with failure in their future. Giving trophies to children is great for boosting a child’s self-esteem, yet it dilutes the ability to overcome failure; trophies are mass produced and frivolously distributed by adults, but children still know what they have earned and what they have not.

When youth sports programs hand out trophies for participation, they teach kids that you only have to participate in order to win. An article states, “Having studied recent increases of narcissism and entitlement among students, she warns that when living rooms are filled with participation trophies, it’s part of a larger cultural message: to succeed, you just have to show up” (Losing is Good for You, nytimes.com). This will turn out to be a huge problem in a child’s future. It’s going to be a huge disappointment when a child learns that you must put effort into their work in order to excel.

Kids who don't try, participate, and play in sports are given awards. They call them participation trophies, and they should not be allowed to hand them off to kids. To begin, kids in sports should not get trophies in participating because those who don't try are given an award anyway and some kids may think that they will always get one for everything they do. Although some parents may think that everyone should get a trophy, once they grow up they wouldn't be ready for how it is playing sports professionally. When you play professionally, you don't get a participation trophy every time you play a game. If kids at a young age learn now and don't get a trophy every week, their hearts won't be broken later in life. Next, some parents believe

In the last couple years, society has debated if participation trophies are important in a child’s growth and development, or are they a complete waste of time. In today’s society, many children are given a participation trophy for just showing up whether they win or lose or even play. The problem in doing this is, we are giving children the idea that it doesn’t matter if you try or not, you’ll leave with a trophy at the end of the day. Giving kids the idea that they will always get something creates the idea that they will never fail. In the real world they will fail and why not prepare the kids for this experience gradually while they are growing up? Kids need to know that in order to better themselves in work, school, or sports; they need to work hard, try harder, and never give up. There will always be someone better than them, but you want to always strive to do better, to do your best. This topic has become a very fascinating argument in many parent groups. What people need to understand is that it isn’t necessarily the child getting the participation trophy that is the issue. It is the message we give them when we give it to them. Participation trophies have a negative effect on children and handing them out should be stopped. Children can become successful in life with or without the participation trophies being handed out.

On my soccer team, no matter what, everyone ended up getting a trophy, and the kids who did work hard felt like it was for nothing. Young athletes will never learn that when people try their hardest they will be rewarded, they will become vain and always expect rewards. In addition children will not know what it is like to lose because every time kids end up getting trophies, they have to fail to succeed. To begin with, some coaches and experts may argue that it boosts confidence in younger athletes, actors, and more. They will get confident enough to pursue what they are doing and win trophies.

Dr. Jonathan Fader is a sports psychologist whose focus of study is working on what motivates people. Fader asserts that " instead of dealing with defeat by telling our kids that “everyone’s a winner at heart,” we should praise them for how hard they hustled, what they did right and how they improved." Praising effort as effort is given is a great way for an individual to feel pride in their work. Intrinsic motivation, that is the motivation that comes from within makes people who love sports instead of just playing them. If a child is intrinsically motivated to help the team to win, then the trophy is of little consequence to that child. Knowing which sport to enroll a child in can be a time consuming, trial and error operation. However when a child finds the activity that motivates them intrinsically the motivation to get better will comes easier than the child that was enrolled in a sport without any knowledge of it. This is also true with adult, as a kid one may be asked to figure out what person loves to do and make that a career choice; the only reason is because the work is more enjoyable and the joy of doing the work will lead to a happier work

In children sports it is common for all children to receive participation trophies whether they win or lose. In life we don’t always win. Children need to learn to fail to be prepared for the failures that happen in life. “It’s through failure and mistakes that we learn the most.” (Merryman). By giving awards to only the children that win, we are teaching them to accept failure.

What most kids don’t know about failure, is that it can be their number one key to success. Making a mistake is like a new and fresh start on how to improve the next time around. When handed a participation award it blocks the sense of accomplishment that is worth much more than any trophy.

“Trophies should be given out for first, second and third; participation should be recognized but celebrated with words and a pat on the back rather than a trophy,” said student, Betty Berdan. Trophies are a symbol of accomplishment and winning. But there are not conveyed that way anymore than what they used to be. These golden pieces of metal or plastics are made regularly and are handed out to every single kid, even if they had no contribution to the team. Trophies are meant to show achievement as well as accomplishment. If everyone aquired a trophy, they would diminish in value. Although participation is encouraged and thoughtful, it shows that losing is accepted, that failure is totally normal. Failure is common and it is needed to build character and charisma. In today’s world, the strong survive, and the weak still have a place in the world. If everyone were to be equal in accomplishing tasks and achievements, there would be no moral value to anything that anyone did. This is basically what communism is, not saying that handing a trophy to everyone is communism, but if everyone was made equal there would be no diversity and determination to do better. That is why we need to teach kids that failure happens and that we need to overcome that failure with future success and get them stronger rather than brainwashing them to believe that they can do anything without putting forth hard effort. In baseball, you can fail 70 percent of the time, and still be inducted into the hall of fame. No olympic athlete had reached the place they are right now without some sort of failure, that they had overcame. Michael Jordan wouldn’t be one of the best basketball players to ever live, without him making his high school varsity team. Walt Disney wouldn’t be one of the most creative and inspirational figures without him being denied jobs and fired for not being ‘creative’. We need failure in our life, we need that feeling of losing. Trophies are for achievement, not failure, and we need to teach kids that moral belief.