Do We Give Children Too Many Trophies Analysis

Mayson Seemann

Mrs. Olson

English 103

27 February 2017

Taking a Stand Essay

Losing is a Part of Life

In today’s world we reward children just for showing up to a sporting event, competition, or contest of some kind. But, is that the right thing to do? We are worried that if we let children lose, it will hurt their feelings and self-esteem, but really I think we are hurting them more by not letting them lose. Why should we raise our children up to believe that just because they showed up to the event they deserve a trophy? We are teaching them that losing is so awful that we can’t let it happen, so everyone gets to be a winner. As a society, we should not give children participation trophies because it is teaching them to accept failure.

Trophies

Learning that everyone fails isn’t an easy lesson to accept, but the sooner we teach our children, the better off they will be. In Michael Gonchar’s article, “Do We Give Children Too Many Trophies?,” Ashley Merryman argues that participation trophies can send a dangerous message. She says, “Thus letting kids lose, or not take home the trophy, isn’t about embarrassing children. It’s about teaching them it can take a long time to get good at something, and that’s all

In Kelly Wallace's article on CNN's website she said, "In fact, a study earlier this year found that children whose parents overvalued them were more likely to develop narcissistic traits, such as superiority and entitlement…." If children start to develop those traits at a young age, how are they going to act when they are older? Those traits won’t benefit them, they will most likely hurt them later in life. At some point in a child’s life there will come a time when they do not get rewarded, and that will have negative effects on them both emotionally and mentally. When children get participation trophies and rewards they start to realize that they don’t have to do anything to get that reward. They will eventually stop trying, but they will still expect to get a reward. When children who have grown up receiving endless awards for participation grow up and go off to college, they will do the work that needs to be done, but they don’t have the want or will to do it well (Merryman). Then, when they get an actual job, they will still believe that attendance is all it takes to get a promotion