The Power of Participation Trophies

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Contrary to what many people think, participation trophies actually appeared in children’s sports about a century ago; in other words, they aren’t a new phenomenon. They have been used for decades to encourage and reward children for participating in fun and healthy activities, like sports. They recognize effort, which children can modulate, rather than intrinsic ability and outcomes, which are dependent on many things that children cannot control.

Since the 1990s, though, there has been a growing and persistent drumbeat of eye-rolling and bloviating about participation trophies being some kind of newfangled parenting idea run amok, making our kids “soft.” Plenty of people with and without any actual expertise have weighed in with extreme confidence in this belief that participation trophies ruin kids’ competitive spirit and make children too lazy and/or too entitled to work hard to get things they want. The thinking often goes: “Every kid will think they are a winner, so they will always feel entitled to winning, even if they don’t deserve to win.”

Participation Trophies Don't Fool Kids

This strikes me as a ridiculous notion. Does anyone really think that kids mistake a participation trophy for winning first place, or that kids are fooled into thinking their participation trophy is a gold medal? Kids are way smarter than that, and way more aware of their social surroundings. Kids know when other kids have more skill on a court or a ball field. A participation trophy just says it was awesome for you to be here having fun. It doesn’t say everyone wins first place.

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And far beyond organized sports, children’s informal play includes plenty of winning and losing—from board games or video games to impromptu races and endless rounds of playground activities like boxball (my era) or “butts up” (in my kids’ day). Some kids get solo parts in the class play and others don’t.

Kids are learning about their abilities and strengths and vulnerabilities all the time, every day. It’s not easy and it’s inescapable. The idea that participation trophies keep kids from experiencing the “real world” is, in my view, ludicrous.

Participation trophies recognize that kids’ skill sets are wildly different and that we put kids in organized sports at young ages, when their skills are still very much in development and not clearly defined. Even beyond standard “athletic” skills such as muscle strength, speed, and hand-eye coordination, which vary wildly between children, success in sports relies on a broad range of other skills such as executive function, language, and social skills as well. Participation trophies celebrate every kid for being a part of the team or the activity, regardless of their skill level.

Celebrating Effort Gives Children Room to Fail

And contrary to the idea that participation trophies keep kids from trying hard things, I believe it does the exact opposite. Recognition for trying something—even if you aren’t especially good at it—sends a message that there’s great value in trying something that you don’t love or that you may not succeed at.

Personally, I think it’s a fabulous antidote to our academic culture that discourages trying and failing, rewarding only outcomes rather than process. Failure is demonized in our academic culture. Encouraging kids to try and fail at things is a critical lesson in building their confidence, in teaching them that failing is essential to growth and learning.

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As kids get older, their strengths and interests develop more clearly and they will become involved in more competitive activities that will measure their abilities, compare them to their peers, and provide plenty of trophies and rewards that will single out some kids for recognition while leaving other kids out entirely. The argument that participation trophies somehow keep kids from experiencing the “real world" of winning and losing crumbles in this context. Kids are exposed to the world of acceptance and rejection, winning and losing, and comparison to their peers from day one. It becomes more and more obvious as they mature into adolescence.

Children Aren't Just Little Adults

Young children aren’t developmentally ready to face the adult world of competition and winning and losing. This notion treats children as if their brains and bodies are just those of “little adults”—but child development science shows this idea to be wrong, even dangerous.

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The idea that kids must be treated as adults to “be ready for the real world” is a trope that often comes from the same voices who find the idea of compassion and empathy in parenting to be "soft" or even "feminizing," and who want to use strength and power as the measure of a child’s success. This system designates winners and losers in a race that doesn’t acknowledge that the starting lines are rigged in favor of some kids and rigged to exclude and demean others.

Participation trophies are protective of children’s mental health by giving them soft places to land in the rocky terrain that is childhood. Kids deserve kindness and grace from the adults in their lives; they deserve to know that they have inherent value and worth no matter what they achieve or produce. This perspective keeps children’s physical and mental well-being front and center right from the start—which couldn’t be more critical if we are going to halt and reverse the devastating mental health crisis gripping our children. These trophies are a drop in the bucket, but they represent so much more.