re: Participation Awards / Trophies - When are they okay?

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hey're fully aware of the difference between winning and losing

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but it most certainly does resonate with them

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This is a flat out contradiction. If they can distinguish between winning a losing, which I fully agree they can, then they don't need a trophy to tell them who won. Recess is basically 100% for talking shite.

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I'm okay with participation awards.

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Me too. At least up through about age 10-12. Any older than that and the kids won't really care about it as much. The 8 and 10 year olds do know the difference between a participation trophy and winning a championship, and just getting something could encourage some of them to come back out next season. It also just gives them something to remember the season by.

I was born in 1970 and started playing t-ball at age 5 and pee wee football at age 6. We always had year end banquets where we ate and the coach/coaches recapped the season and gave a speech. We always received a team trophy. It was not for winning anything as we would get a championship trophy after the championship game if we won. It wasn't considered an award either. It was considered an item to commemorate the season and to serve as a source of pride that you were part of that team.

It never gave me or any of my teammates a false sense of accomplishment. It was just fun and exciting to take the trophy home and put on the shelf of dresser top. We knew the difference between a commemoration trophy and a trophy for actually winning a championship. We were not jumping around thinking we were champions all of the sudden.

I have 4 kids now and have been an 8th grade football coach since my early 20s. We give our players certificates at our banquet. I also coach my 10 year old sons baseball team and they will receive a team commemoration trophy. It has been this way since at least the late 60s. I know this because my youngest uncle had metal trophies all over his basement when I was a kid. Most were just team trophies.

The giving of team commemoration trophies is harmless and anyone trying to make a case otherwise needs more real problems in their life to focus on rather than manufacturing faux outrage over commemoration trophies.

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The real issue is the parents who can't handle sitting down and actually teaching their kid the difference between a participation award and an achievement award. We should stop expecting the people handing out the awards to teach the lesson by not handing them out

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This. When I make fun of participation ribbons, I'm not making fun of the kids. They are too young to understand or really care. The party that I laugh at is the parents that demand their kids get a participation ribbon. These are the people that have issues. Instead of teaching their kid about winning and losing, they need a surrogate to make sure they don't have to have tough conversations with their children aboit losing and that they their children always feel included. Those are the folks that have issues because they are doing a huge disservice to their children.

T-shirt for everyone. Trophies for top 3. I remember when I first starting playing competitive basketball. A few of the kids that were on the team previously participated in CYBA (Columbia Youth Basketball Association). This league required coaches to play all players equally, no matter how good/bad the player was.

On the competitive team, these kids never played. Parents bitched about paying a lot of money to not have their kid play.

Hey, if you can't stand the heat, get the hell out. Little Tommy shouldn't be playing, because we paid a ton of money to WIN.

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