Should Children Be Allowed To Participation Awards For Losing?

“Champions are made from something they have deep inside them a desire, a dream, a vision.” ( Muhammad Ali) When a child gets involved with a new sport all they want to do is win. So when they first get an award that is a really happy moment but when a child gets a trophy because they practiced for hours, days, and even months they never want it to end because they earned it. Participation awards are like telling them that they lost but people want them to feel like they won and did good, but when really we should tell them that they lost but next time try harder.
“If children always receive a trophy - regardless of effort or achievement - we’re teaching kids that losing is so terrible that we can never let it happen.”(Merryman) says. What if we always were to give children participation awards for losing. Children when they are
young the like to get trophies or metals so when they know in the end if they win the will get an award makes them try harder in the end. But if they were to get a award after they lost they would not want to try hard to get that award. Awards when children are seven and under can really make a child want to keep playing that sport, but when they get older then that they start to want it more so they try hard and do better and get an award the right way, by winning it. People keep trying to tell us that participation awards are good for children but what about teenager. Teenagers realize that when they get an award when they did not win they wonder why the worked and practiced so hard just to get an award for losing. When children grow up and become teenagers they most likely will throw away those ten dollar trophy they got when they were six.
Instead of spending money on participation trophies we should be spending our money on new equipment, places to practice, and uniforms and things like that. Some awards can be good for kids because it makes them want to stay in the sport and they learn to love the sport or activity. It can also make the child feel better because they know they did something. But when it comes to later on children will realize that they lost and that makes them feel bad because no one really wants to lose. When children have just lost a game or a tournament and they see another team win it makes them try harder and harder to get a trophy by actually winning it because it makes all that practice and hard work a hundred times better. Children need to learn that when they lose it’s because they might have not have tried hard enough. So when they put in all they have and work for it then that trophy feels a lot better then when they get a trophy for no reason. Kids that learn early on that play a sport or competing means a lot of hard work and hard work pays off. So don’t let kid get a participation award when they did not really earn
it.