Written by I remember in the ‘good old days’ when psychology wasn’t associated with youth sports and we weren’t encumbered with scholarly theory on whether or not we should be rewarded for showing up. Yes, we did show up for the fun; for our love of the sport, but it is undeniable also, that being recognized for that effort would have been pretty cool too, so we didn’t just feel like we were ‘making up the numbers’, especially when we were painfully aware that we were not the ‘star’ player.
Followers of the “participation trophies are bad” side of the debate believe that rewarding participation can inhibit a child’s “…internal motivation, devalue the true winners in a competition, and are overall a symptom of today’s overprotective parenting standards”.
Wow, that’s a lot of weighty responsibility on weekend football or interschool softball.
Sports psychologist, Dan Gould, believes that, “For rewards to work, they need to be earned. If you’re trying to increase a kid’s motivation, emphasize health or emphasize how fun it is to move or play ball.” He believes that by encouraging children through the everyday benefits of sports they can be shown that playing sport is rewarding without an award. That they will develop ‘internal motivation’ to show up and perform well by experiencing the simple joy of playing with friends.
But is there any harm in thanking them for it?
Psychology professor, Kenneth Barish, asserts that, “The idea of giving trophies only to the winners doesn’t emphasize enough of the other values that are important.” There are much more valuable gains from playing sports than honing abilities to become the best of the best, such as developing social skills and a positive attitude to health and fitness. The participation award provides a token of thanks for their contribution to the team and engenders memories of good times that will be more likely to encourage a lifelong love of the sport that they will pay forward to their own children
Theories in child psychology suggest that offering these tokens of appreciation present massive benefits of positive reinforcement. The child receives an award for valuing ‘presence’, ‘effort’ and ‘teamwork’, not to mention ‘reliability’, ‘flexibility’, and pride regardless of victory or loss. This attitude promotes the best kind of culture, where every cog in the engine is important not just key that starts the car! In fact, studies have indicated that being outcome-driven instead of being able to focus on the processes that led to there, can teach children to cut-corners, or bypass important steps in the future.
“Two groups were offered the choice between an easy test or one that was more difficult but presented an opportunity to learn. 67% of the kids called “smart” chose the easier test while 92% of the kids praised for working hard chose the more difficult one. [proving that] Rather than teaching kids a black-and-white dynamic of winning vs. losing”… children should be shown a more adventurous and participatory path.
So the caveat from this is that by encouraging children to limit themselves by sticking to the familiar, the child will always chose the easier route, whereas the child encouraged to throw themselves in to a new environment without a previously perfected talent will learn far more long term.
The best argument favoring participation trophies is that “rewarding kids for their efforts at a young age can have lasting, positive effects on their development. They teach our kids that it’s important to try new things and do your part as a member of a team.”
At the end of the day, is there really anything wrong with saying “thanks for coming, we appreciate that you made the effort because we value your presence”?