Thursday, March 08, 2007

"How You Play The Game?"


Participation trophies need to stop!
It's really enough with this stuff. Every kid who runs around on a field like a spastic dwarf doesn't automatically deserve an award for doing so.
When I was a kid a trophy meant something. It was an symbol of accomplishment. For being the best individual or a member of the best team. In other words, you needed to earn it! If you didn't earn it, that meant you just had to work harder the next time.
Striving to be the best at something is what it should be about. However, these days just participating is enough.
What does this say to the kid who stays later at practice? The one who works and works at being better and better?
It basically says.... "That's nice, but your work is as valuable as the kid who only comes to every third practice, doesn't improve, and acts as a drain on the entire team."
Screw that!
Children these days have no sense about the real world. The world they will have to enter one day after their parents cut the strings when they turn 30! In the real world just showing up isn't enough. It's what you do when you get there that counts. Telling children "You don't have to try to be the best, you just need to show up" is counter productive nonsense.
And I realize that every child isn't going to be a good athlete. Some of them just have no natural ability and that's okay. Not every kid needs to compete in sports to have a worthwhile existence. If they suck at sports buy them a paint brush. If they can't paint, get them and instrument. I don't care how many girls the Captain of the Football Team gets... The guy playing the guitar like Stevie Ray Vaughan will ALWAYS get more!
Period.
The point is, everybody has a talent for something. Music, arts, sports, science...
Continuing to "reward" children for just showing up and pushing them into sports that they'll never be good at isn't making you a better parent. It's making them resent you!
One day, they'll wake up and discover the world is a tough place and that they have no ability or skills to deal with it. That life isn't fair and no one cares if you show up at all. Not when there are ten people standing behind you ready to take your place.
Then they'll come to you, confused, and unsure of what happened. Just point to the participation trophies and smile.... Just like you do now.

18 Comments:

Blogger A.S.S. said...

I don't have any skills and I never got a trophy :o(

1:07 PM  
Blogger JT said...

Well said. I have three kids who all play competative hockey. This year my middle boy's team won their league championship here in Western NY. This is a big deal. They earned the right to play in the final game and they won. Good for them.

But I hate this everyone has to be on the team and everyone has to get a trophy. That is wrong. Same middle kid is trying out for the JV golf team as a 7th grader. He's got a low enough handicap, but he probably won't make the team because of his age. That is fine. People ask me why I let him try out when he's just going to get cut. Um, Duh! It builds character!!!! My daughter got cut from the girls travel hockey team last April. It was hard, but she didn't deserve (based on her tryout) to make the team. She asked the coach what she needed to do and he told her. He invited her to the practices so she came. She worked hard and eventually was pulled up. Good for her. But my point is we knew there was a very good chance she wouldn't make that team. Oh well. Didn't mean she wouldn't play hockey, just not on the elite team.

What are these kids going to do when they get their hearts broken for the first time? Don't get into their first choice of college? Don't get that first job? Or better, get fired? These are things we need to learn to deal with in life. If you don't learn how to deal with disappointment and find your limits, then you won't survive as an adult.

This make everybody feel good philosphy is not doing our children any favors. Say no to your kids. Let them fail. Don't run off to school because they left a project on the kitchen table, let them get the bad grade. Next time they will remember. If they want to try something, let them. If they don't make the team, so what. Don't tell them the coaches don't know talent, becasue the coaches do and you kid just doesn't have it. so let them do something else. Encourage them to find themselves, but don't try and save them from every little hurt and disappointment life has to offer. Those little pains in life make us better people.

1:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well said...... I agree with Jennifer it builds character...


The thing that pisses me to no end is the parents say... Its alright you didnt win as long as you had fun... That's bullshit... You know you wanted them to win and you throw this dumb ass statement out... I myself like to say... You lost now get over it and try harder next time :) but hey I'm not one of those "nice" parents...

And I dont believe shoving my kids into every activity going... I just wanna smack those people...

rr

www.ramble-on-rose.com

2:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It definitely builds character. I just read an interesting article about how the "Me" generation (the first generation where nobody wins and we started making self-absorbed wusses) is just graduating out of college and entering the work force and companies have been voicing their displeasure.

3:44 PM  
Blogger Gina Thompson said...

I got a trophy for our soccer team winning second in a tourny. The glue dried up and the plaque fell off.

Save money. Don't support the production of cheap ass trophies to make kids feel good about themselves.

3:45 PM  
Blogger Jenny G said...

Kids today are too soft. Not everyone is special.

6:38 PM  
Blogger Lizzle said...

As a graduate of the school of hard knocks, (with multiple post graduate degrees from the same institution) I can safely say that the kids nowadays are VERY soft... Much to their detriment. They have been sheltered from every germ, every "bad word," every potentially threatening news story, and especially from failure.

When the parents were busy occupying their parenting time filtering out all of those things, I think they totally forgot that life's negative aspects are necessary... They are things that teach kids that they have to be self-reliant, and that they have to be willing to make an extra effort, because for 99.9% of them, nobody is just going to hand them a trust fund and say, "Here you go, kiddo! Because you're such a winner."

Nope, the vast majority of them will have to go out and earn what they want, and the sad fact is that they are grossly ill equipped to do so.

10:17 PM  
Blogger Greg said...

There's a trophy place I pass every morning on the way to work. I keep telling myself one of these days I'm going to stop and have some trophies made for myself. Most people I work with don't know me that well, so I could totally make something up. Sad. But sweet.

9:09 AM  
Blogger Kari Lee Townsend said...

Well said. We go through this a lot too.

7:12 PM  
Blogger B. said...

Agreed. It's not special when EVERYONE gets a trophy. I like the fact that I am the only one from my high school that has a "1998-1999 Female Athlete of the Year" trophy sitting in my house. :)

2:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Boy did you hit the nail on the head. I have a MS in PE(which if you saw me would give you a laugh). I have 3 adult kids and when they played I went nuts when they gave trophys to everyone.
GOD BLESS
BUDDY

4:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

True true true...

My kids all got these "trophies" when they were little and it was such a joke it makes me cringe everytime I come across one in the back of their closets. What a waste of money and materials.

Save the trophies for the real rewards that are earned by hard work and going the extra mile. Just showing up doesn't cut it.

8:20 AM  
Blogger JT said...

Kid had a hockey tournament this weekend. The lost in the champaionship game, and do you know why? Because they sucked. They placed like crap. Shit happens. They went home the loser. They are better little men because of it.

11:23 AM  
Blogger Victoria Williams said...

Yeah, it is sad. As someone who has grown children who haven't always had it easy.......disappointment can be a good thing. My daughter played basketball in jr high. She sucked at it. My son played football in jr high. He sucked at that. Now they both realize they need real life skills to survive in this world. My daughter is in college, working to graduate this spring with a degree in accounting. My son is planning on being a forest fire fighter. They haven't had it easy, but they are better for it.fl

5:46 PM  
Blogger Kari Lee Townsend said...

If definitley builds character. And that is something kids need. Our kids don't have a clue these days and it's mostly our fault for keeping them too soft.

7:47 AM  
Blogger Kari Lee Townsend said...

Okay, I've left a comment three times now and it's not taking. I hate when that happens. I hope this one goes through.

4:51 PM  
Blogger pog mo thoin said...

Just think about what happens to these kids when they stay 25 years in a middle management job. I want to hang myself and I never got the meaningless trophy.

3:42 PM  
Blogger hotwire said...

i posted a while ago on the 'wussification of america' and the main trust was participation trophies, so i'm with you brother.

5:38 PM  

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