Child Abuse In Sports

Two years ago, I played in my first ever basketball championship. We were going up against my friend, Evan’s basketball team. Since this was my first championship, I was nervous. The game was intense with each team battling back and forth. In the end our team eventually won and we were ecstatic. We anxiously awaited to be awarded our championship trophy but instead, we received standard participation trophies. I believed this was unfair and needed to be changed because I wanted to be rewarded for our team’s success. I didn’t want to be treated the same as the losing team. Throughout my years of sports, I have received numerous participation trophies although they don’t have the same meaning as those that were earned. Participation trophies
are awarded to our youth in order to encourage them to participate the following year. My parents taught me from a young age to be competitive and always try my best, but sometimes there is failure in life as well. The reality is not everyone can be a winner all the time. At times in life there will be disappointment and this is a lesson we must all learn. Failure and disappointment can also serve as great motivators, however awarding a trophy under these circumstances does not prepare our youth for the real world. By sugar-coating and praising failure, adults are not properly preparing their youth for some failures they will likely encounter in the future. Participation trophies do not prepare our youth for the real world.
As sports anchor Jim Vance once stated, "It's child abuse to give a kid a trophy that he has not earned.
If a parent's responsibility is to teach a kid how to deal with the real world, then that is child abuse. Because that's not the real world.” As children grow, so does their eagerness to win. What about the kids who can’t keep up with the competition? Simple. They quit. An article from CNN states, “Seventy percent of children leave organized sports by the age 13, according to research by the National Alliance for Sports. Let's put it this way: If your daughter or son plays on a soccer team, seven out of 10 of the members of that team won't be playing soccer or any organized sport whatsoever by the time they enter their teenage
years.” By providing youth trophies for merely participating, we are teaching them they are entitled to something they may not have earned.
However, If you reward effort and success, it teaches youth to always put their best effort first and be motivated to succeed. By letting our youth accept defeat by rewarding them, we are sending a message that it’s okay to fail in life and everything is going to be fine and dandy. Well, that’s not how life works. You need to be able to succeed to move forward. For instance, when you interview for a job, you won’t get that job unless you are able to handle the responsibility and are the best candidate. A quote from Men’s Journal states, “Studies have shown that rewarding kids just for participating can have a negative impact, producing a self-obsessed, irresponsible, and an unmotivated generation of false achievers.” Many adults and parents have become aware of the problem and have only signed their children up for sports that don’t give out participation trophies at the end of the year. Here’s a quote from a father telling about his son’s first year of lacrosse: “‘Daddy, do we get trophies for playing lacrosse this spring?’,my son asked me a few months
back.
‘No, you get to go out and run around and have lots of fun while learning lacrosse,’ I said. ‘OK!’ Then he turned and ran out on the field for the start of his first practice. According to some people, he should have stormed back to the car and refused to play. After all, there were no trophies being handed out. But he didn’t, because he just wanted to play.” Kids should strive to be their best in no matter what they do. Some kids who are forced to play sports may not try their hardest because they don’t want to be there. It’s not fair to the kids that work hard, try their best, and succeed to get a participation trophy that is the same as the kid who didn’t put forth the best effort. Here’s another quote I found that is from NFL star, James Harrison: “While I am very proud of my boys for everything they do and will encourage them till the day I die, these trophies will be given back until they EARN a real trophy. I’m not sorry for believing that everything in life should be earned and I’m not about to raise two boys to be men by making them believe that they are entitled to something just because they tried their best.” I believe sports should be enjoyable and the reward should come from the experience. There will always be disappointments and it is important that we teach youth how to deal with those disappointments. It is equally as important to teach youth to always strive to be their best and work towards success. This success should be rewarded with a trophy. While we think participation trophies are a way to make all kids feel good about themselves, we are doing them an injustice by not having them face reality. The reality is, we don’t always win and everyone cannot win all the time. In conclusion, participation trophies do not prepare our youth for the real world.