I’d be willing to trade letting the kids keep their participation trophies if they promised to stop mugging for the sports photographer during the actual competitions.
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But that’s my point. Pride is warranted after devoting dozens (hundreds?) of hours to learning skills, learning how to be a teammate, improving your physical coordination and cardio. Regardless of whether the child becomes the best of that group at that activity, the fact that the attempt was made and sustained deserves a boost in self-esteem. At least it does in my opinion.
I look at it differently. Over the course of decades, I’ve bounced between loading docks to executive meetings to warehouse to board rooms, and worked with every SES of every race of every level of worker. I’ve hired others, promoted others, been laid off and quit. What I’ve noticed is a certain type of advantaged mediocre person gets good jobs and coasts without anything to claim but an abundance of self-esteem (sometimes only the projection of.) And others are repeatedly underpaid, underappreciated, and overlooked for advancement partially because of a lack of self-esteem.
If anything, more disadvantaged children need to learn how to be as self-confident as the mediocre advantaged kids are. The higher SES kid expects a certain salary, a certain position, a certain level of respect, regardless of her talent, and IME they often get it … or at least get close to it. The disadvantaged kids are more likely to suffer from imposter syndrome and settle for the lower pay just to get the position, because they don’t feel they really deserve it in the first place. That’s the direct result of a lack of self-esteem. I’ve worked with higher SES 25 year olds with no real experience who expected to walk into a venture capital interview and walk out with 7-figure funding - AND GET IT! And I’ve watched 30 year olds with a wealth of relevant experience, but from lower SES backgrounds, beg the entire world for funding for a fantastic idea and lavish thank-yous on the lone loan officer that provides $30K. Sometimes self-esteem goes a long way in dictating how the presentation is made.
You better believe I tell my kids all the time, “Great Job!!!”, even when it was a mediocre job. I tell them how to do better, but I always say they did great in the first place. I’m not a big believer in being overly critical or withholding praise. Life is too hard as it is. My kids deserve to know I’m always proud of their efforts.
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For many kids, sticking with something for 5 years is an accomplishment, especially if they come from families who cannot or do not provide around the clock 100% support.
And don’t employers often give plaques or awards to commemorate 5, 10, 20, 30 years of employment? Perseverance, loyalty, and commitment seem to be values worth rewarding to me.
For those who adamantly oppose participation trophies . . . on your next wedding anniversary try explaining to your spouse that there will be no gifts or celebration, because you don’t believe in rewarding perseverance, loyalty, and commitment.
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Back in October 2019, “Family Guy” riffed on participation trophies, when Stewie (baby) proudly walks around wearing his latest medal, but Brian (dog) breaks the bad news that the medal was just for participation by saying:
Those are my feelings. 
OTOH, I very much enjoy my participation or “finisher” medals that they give you after a race or competition. I proudly display them in prominent positions on our mantle. 
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One year the team mom for baseball took a picture of each boy, blew it up, mounted it to a hard piece of plastic, and then cut around the outline of the body so that all that was left was the kid with no background. Each boy had their own unique trophy. Completely awesome and that is one we’ll never get rid of.
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I love my race participation medals too. But we’re adults. Very different situation.
How so?
That part of my post was tongue-in-cheek. 
To wit, I received a 1st place medal in powerlifting competition 3 weeks ago. Where is it located now? I think it’s still in the back of my car, where I left it 3 weeks ago, but now buried under a bunch of other crap. 
It’s about the thrill of competition and not about the rewards IMO. I tried to pass that along to my kids.
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I didn’t say I necessarily have an issue with it. I said it to counter the idea that kids don’t get trophies for every activity. It was meant to be funny. I honestly don’t care one way or another. The trophy is not such a problem IMO. For me, how the adults in a child’s life treat them when they participate in activities is more important.
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I remember when a pro football player put participation trophy’s in the news when he sent back ones that his sons received, saying that he only wanted them to have trophy’s that they earned.
I disagreed with his premise since his sport isn’t relegation/promotion like in Europe. He gets a salary and a place in the top league regardless of performance. NFL is a pure socialist system.
Participation trophies also exist in the “real world”. In most jobs if you turn up and don’t completely suck you get the base salary. It’s hard to fire for just mediocrity.
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Understood. Sorry if it seemed I was getting after you, I was just more using your post as jumping off point to offer an opinion as to how “participation” awards that may seem silly from our perspective can be positive for some kids, and also that participation trophies are more common than we realize for all ages.
Isn’t a birthday present a sort of a participation trophy? And for what? Merely surviving another year? Pretty low standard, in most cases. What are we teaching our children, anyway?
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It’s an interesting question how you teach that to your kids though. I was brought up by parents who never just let you win, you had to actually be better than them (at board games, card games, even sports). In some cases it took a long time and you had to get over the fact that you would lose a lot (I never got better than my dad at chess for example). But when you actually did win it meant something and my parents viewed it as having respect for their kids that they treated them as competitive equals.
We did the same with our kids. But that seems very odd to a lot of our friends.
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Growing up, both of my parents would play board games with me. I would usually be the first eliminated and then I would watch the two of them play against each other. They would increase the complexity of the rules so I found it interesting watching their technique and methods. It was a learning exercise. I remember never feeling too upset about “losing” since it it felt natural for adults to be better than me.
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I was the same with my DD. I never let her beat me at any game or sport, even at 4. When she could finally beat me, and it eventually happened at pretty much everything 
, she was on top of the world. Especially as a URM, I wanted to instill in her early that nothing would be handed to her; she had to work hard for it. And the few times she cried when she lost a race or match, she got a great effort, keep working hard and try again next time - plus some ice cream.
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Funny you should say this. We just had an anniversary two days ago. We did get each other cards and there was a bar of chocolate involved, but that was it besides a nice hike in the mountains. We don’t need more stuff. It would be a great present if someone could come haul away all the excess stuff we already have! We are totally on the same page about this.
And my kids don’t like a lot of stuff either. They are at the point now where what they want most for celebrations like birthdays and holidays is cold hard cash, or me direct depositing into their checking accounts.
And birthdays presents aren’t participation trophies. They are a celebration of people you love and being glad they were born. We usually go out to eat or get take-out from a favorite restaurant and I do try to get a present that is something I have heard them mention or observed that they want, but I don’t get them useless pieces of gold-painted plastic to sit on the shelf.
Back to the activities and what kids come home with, I prefer the items that are useful like a t-shirt or bag like was mentioned upthread.
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Ah heck, I used to cheat at Candyland so the game could end sooner with one of them winning.
Not a single one of my boys grew up harmed by it. They all love playing games now too, but now we all prefer a good bit of strategy coupled with a little bit of luck (vs all luck). Maybe they grew as tired of Candyland as I was?
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I can see both sides of it. I am a parent whose kids have dozens of participation & award trophies, medals and ribbons. I myself had tons growing up; and even into adulthood, I’ve probably given away/recycled a hundred running trophies. At our local races every woman would get a trophy. They had more trophies than entrants! So I get it. I do.
But, I also coached, managed, held together, our local rec swim team for 7 years. We were a rag tag team in a poor SES area where not many people know how to swim correctly let alone coach. I had all ages from 5-18 from barely above drowning to nationally ranked in one 4 lane (nasty) pool. Our equipment was what I could beg from other team’s throw aways and we tried to fundraise some more. My main goals for the teams were to teach kids how to swim correctly, learn how to work hard, have a good team experience and have fun. And I never wanted them to be burnt out like I was in USA swimming.
Most of my kids were not good and would never be good. Many did not have any self esteem or were not confident in the water. I had one kid who was orphaned (and abused) in a war torn country and then was adopted and then abandoned TWICE more in the US. He was a handful, but I liked him. He’d never win anything and may not have tried that hard, but I would like to think that that plastic trophy meant something to him. A remembrance of at least one positive time in his life.
And he wasn’t the only one like that. I would try to recognize those who didn’t win for something that they did do at the end of the year. For a lot of kids, that may be the only recognition they get. And it can mean a lot. A bunch of plastic trophies alone isn’t going to turn someone into a Narcissist. It also comes from the home and now (unfortunately) social media.
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I confess I did that too. 
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Would “projection of self-esteem” be basically selling oneself (for jobs, promotions, etc.)?
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Otherwise known as “managing up”.
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