Best participation trophy I can remember was toward the end of a middle school awards program that droned on for hours due to just about every student being on the list to receive something. I was roused from stupor when, after the award for “Best Behavior on the Bus” (!) was handed out, a dad near me shouted out, “Way to ride the bus, Tyler!” That pretty much did it for me and awards ceremonies.
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The only participation trophies my kids got were from a very young age. At that point, they got little trophies for sticking out the year in soccer/baseball/lacrosse. As they grew, they certainly understood that some of the kids were much more skilled/talented than others. That was true in sports, music, acting and academics. There is no way that a participation trophy has more impact than watching the other kids achieve at a much higher level.
Winning isn’t everything. The team that started out losing every game or is in a very tough conference, may deserve more recognition for coming in third than the stacked team that wins it all. I sometimes find it frustrating that the local press focuses solely on wins, not on good games. Winning is great, but not always possible. I remember one soccer game my son and his teammates thought they should have won and felt they did not play well. Those second-place medals went in the trash. In other situations, they were proud of getting second place since they recognized they played really well, but the other team was just better.
Kids need good self esteem which should come from being proud of their achievements and of trying hard, even if they fail. Praising only results or praising every little action can undermine that. OTOH, most kids figure this out on their own, regardless of the kind of praise or trophies they receive.
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I don’t think there are hard and fast rules- so much depends on how a kid is wired.
I’ve seen kids with anxiety who don’t seem to have gotten much in the way of “You did your best and that’s all that matters” messaging when young. And the perfectionism and the rest of the anxiety manifestations seem a lot more toxic than having a kid who got a participation trophy in the third grade, no? Not saying that it’s causative- but parents need to clue in to what their kid needs before coming up with a hard and fast rule around praise.
There are other kids who thrive in the cracks in the sidewalk. They’re impervious to either negative or positive messaging- they do their own thing, they go their own way.
I don’t think the absolutes are helpful. Children are too different. And ask any grownup who manages a large team- some high performers fall apart when they get feedback (good, bad, neutral) and others just go with the flow, are receptive to any sort of message, they are active listeners but then absorb what they want to absorb. When I have a team member who cannot bear to hear anything besides “You are fantastic” I often wonder what the heck their childhood was like.
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I remember when my oldest D was playing club soccer and her team played to a 1-1 tie in a championship game, which ultimately went to penalty kicks to settle the match. But even after multiple rounds of PK’s, the teams remained tied. I was on the sidelines as an assistant coach and manager.
Anyway, one of the players asks Molly, the head coach, if the team still gets a trophy, even if the team loses the match. Coach Molly turns the player and says “Yes, and it says 1st place losers on it.” 
I loved that response. D and I still get a “kick” reminiscing about that impromptu line. It was somewhere in the middle school years, IIRC.
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It depends what the activity is. A sprint will have trophies for the winner. A marathon will give a trophy for anyone who can actually finish the race. I’m not a big believer in competitiveness. It’s appropriate for sports, running a business, or some academics, but it’s a terrible life lesson to teach kids. Instead, I wish there were more emphasis on collaboration in our educational system.
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That’s why I’m happy my kids were interested in the arts and didn’t want to do organized sports. They like to hike/walk/swim for physical activity and they do/did theater for years for collaboration and team work, also dance when they were younger. Theater and dance teach the same good “being on a team” lessons as sports without the competition against another team (caveat: there are some dance and theater competitions out there, but that’s not what I’m talking about). The dance or theater ‘team’ works together to put on a production with everyone doing their part to make it happen. Band or Orchestra is similar.
I know sports can be fun and I enjoy a game of HORSE or frisbee occasionally, but I’m not about “beating” the competition.
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Obviously, there are more life lessons than just competitiveness to pass along to children with sports.
It’s not all about competition. Sports builds collaboration aka teamwork and other life skills such as character, respect, accountability, ethics, morality, leadership, humility, resilience and on and on.
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H (especially H) and I did that too! Candyland is soooo tedious! I can’t believe I used to love it when I was a kid. As our kids got older, we didn’t do that though. Is Chutes and Ladders still around? D loved that game and often didn’t want to play anything else, we got so tired of it.
I do think competition can be fun and healthy, but I don’t think everything needs to be a competition or a contest. I had a friend growing up who thought everything had to be a competition…needless to say, I didn’t hang out with her very often and she didn’t have a lot of friends.
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Isn’t this thread about whether the non-competition aspects of sports are even worth acknowledging and celebrating?
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Participation trophies are handed out to losers of competitions. I almost always get a “finisher” medal and t-shirt, when completing a race. 
The winners get 1st place trophies. Others get participation trophies.
The original article was about whether giving participation trophies (and perhaps more to the point inflating school grades) to raise kids’ self-esteem was ineffective or perhaps even counterproductive if it led them to become narcissistic by believing they were “special” rather than average.
The article noted that the original academic studies from UC Berkeley used to justify these efforts were misrepresented as showing positive benefits where few or none existed.
Thanks. I was referring to the subsequent discussion, I guess I should have been more clear. As for the article, it was interesting but not particularly surprising. I doubt that so many of our societal ills can be attributed to the quest for “self-esteem.” At the very least, neither correlation nor causation has been adequately demonstrated. Perhaps the author and his experts should have reflected on the the warnings of the key scientist in the study:
“And we’re not sure, when we have correlations, what the causes might be.
. . .
It’s the sin of overselling. And nobody can want to do that.”
Obviously education is more complicated that just trying to build “self-esteem” attached to nothing, and self-esteem" for its own sake isn’t a cure-all. What we do matters, and the rewards and acknowledgements we receive ought to reflect that.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we shouldn’t acknowledge and award accomplishments other than winning competitions. Characteristics like those listed by @sushiritto, “character, respect, accountability, ethics, morality, leadership, humility, resilience and on and on” aren’t narcissistic pursuits. They are valuable life skills. So why not encourage them by celebrating them?
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Who said they’re not celebrated?
Sometimes they are, sometimes not so much. And when these things are celebrated, for example with participation awards, this gets ridiculed. There is a message there and kids pick up on it. Participation medals are for “losers.” The message is not lost on kids. All that really matters is winning. Win or you are a losers. First place losers.
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Well, I’m glad that’s settled. 
Can we establish a % of how often kids are celebrated or not? (rhetorical) That’s a pretty wishy-washy statement IMO.
First, as a parent, you’re picking the coach right? If you don’t like the coach, then move on to the next one. That’s on the parent to stick with a coach that doesn’t celebrate those important life lessons. Maybe they should take the Positive Coaching Alliance course, like I was required to take several times.
Coach Molly from above (“1st place losers”) was loved by everyone. Not everything had/has to be positive IMO.
Second, what’s wrong with losing? Losing builds character, strength, resilence. Losing is one of life’s important lessons. You have to learn how to lose at some point, right?
You celebrate moments, not with participation medals.
That’s not been my experience, so I disagree. Kids are VERY perceptive. They know how to count and figure out the score of a game or match. Participation medals are unnecessary.
Speaking as a former youth coach (travel teams) in three sports for over a decade.
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I think that’s what the original article was getting at, that some kids don’t know how to lose, and so fall apart when confronted by the adversity that they’ve been shielded from in childhood. But it’s probably very much an upper/middle class phenomenon.
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My kids started with trophies for Soccer and Basketball. When they were playing in 2 basketball teams and 2 soccer teams a year, they got tired of having to find space to stick one more thing and we and they were glad when they got other things for playing the season. Medals and ribbons were nice and compact.
They REALLY all liked it when they got basketball shorts for participating, because it was something they wore and their families also appreciated. If they had ever gotten bags, they would likely have enjoyed that as well or water bottles or other practical things. When D completed in a outrigger canoe paddling we were glad she got ribbons—very compact!
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It’s a wishy-washy world. Some parents, coaches, and teams honor and celebrate accomplishments beyond winning or losing. Others, not so much.
No. I’m not. Nor are the vast majority of parents.
Nothing at all wrong with losing. That’s my point. As you say, losing can be an important life lesson. But if the lesson learned is a Ricky Bobby-esqe “If you ain’t first, you’re last” then perhaps the lesson isn’t all that positive. Same goes for Dale Earnhardt’s “Second place is just first loser.”
These quotes represent a winning-is-everything mentality and scream that there is something wrong with losing, and that message isn’t lost on kids. Don’t win or you are a loser, and we all know that loser carries connotations that go well beyond a mere factual statement of who didn’t win. But kids can lose without being taught that they are losers.
But I doubt we are as far apart on this issue as you may think, because IMO the article you quoted provides a number of illustrations of exactly what I mean. See the quotes from the baseball coaches and the sports psychologist, for example.
I really don’t get your point here. What is it about celebrating a kid’s participation in athletics that you find so offensive? Isn’t the very act of participating an accomplishment for some kids, for a host of reasons? What are we allowed to celebrate in athetiics, and what aren’t we? And I know you’ve joked about it, but how do you really feel the same way about athletic participation awards for adults?
I agree that kids are very perceptive and that they “know the score,” and in my experience most really want to win no matter the trophy. That’s why I don’t get the hostility that some parents have toward participation awards. It’s not pretend winning. It is celebrating and valuing an aspect of athletic competition beyond the final score. Or at least is should be.
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When one daughter was in dance, I chose the studio but which teacher we got depended on what time slot fit our schedule. When my other daughter took gymnastics, I chose a day/time slot, not a specific teacher. If I wanted to schedule 1-on-1 training I could have chosen a specific coach, but that’s a completely different thing than what I think most are discussing in this thread.
I’ve chosen my kids music teachers (kind of sort of, sometimes) but I’ve never had the ability to choose a specific coach for a team sport. When my son played basketball, I chose the league but every player was randomly assigned to a specific team and thus a coach.
And once school sports start, there is definitely no way to choose a coach. At least not where I live. I think the Sushiritto family has a lot more pull than me.
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My daughter started paying her sport at age 6 and continued non-stop through her senior year of HS. She has probably a couple of hundred trophies, metals, plaques, game balls and other misc. awards from over the years (no participation trophies since rec. ball at age 6). In her case, the excitement of receiving a trophy for either 1st or 2nd place diminished many years ago and it became more of a chore to have to stay after a very long day of games and go through a trophy ceremony. In fact, her last coach had apparently had it with the trophies too because he would congratulate the other team/coach and respectfully decline the trophy ceremony. Parents & players were very grateful.
Game balls on the other hand are harder to get, and are awarded by the coaches - those she treasures and can recall the circumstances behind each one.
I don’t have a problem with participation trophies for very young kids at the beginning level who are perhaps trying a sport for the first time. The trophy itself is not going to cause future narcissism or over-inflated self esteem - but beyond the beginner level, the lessons on winning and losing (and losing gracefully) need to start.
The dangers, as I have seen them in my daughter’s sport over the years, are the extreme reactions of parents (even at a very young age) if their kids lose - and even worse, the projection on other kids on the team who those same parents think aren’t performing or whose mistake(s) cost the team the win. That is far more detrimental to self esteem than giving a participation trophy.
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