Participation Trophies

As someone who has received participation trophies in the past, I personally feel like they're a waste of time. However, my best friend, who also received a participation award for the same obligatory science fair, was pumped because they'd never won anything before.

They have value, I'm certain of it, but I don't personally care for them. I'd rather children be awarded for having an interest in useful things, and continue to be interested in things, than have no reason for them to care at all.
Having said that, I would say the issue isn't the participation trophies at all, but the parents who insist upon them. Participation trophies are a symptom of a problem that starts with helicopter and absent parents, and ends with bullies and people like Paris Hilton.

Speaking as what you would call an "older baby-boomer" and the parent of a Gen-Xer and a pair of millenials, I have no problem with participation trophies, so long as they are identified as such. I get involved in the occasional event, like a bicycle ride, and neither expect nor accomplish anything near winning it. But I usually get a t-shirt or water bottle as a participant and I like it.

It only bothers me when the event makes an intentional statement that winning or losing, or the score or the ranking, doesn't matter. Because it does. Though that too needs to be kept in perspective. Not winning does not make one a loser.

Agreed, the participation trophy/ribbon crap is dumb. It falls under the: "Every bodies a winner", BS.
I think a major part is due to how now-a-days every child is 'Special'. Way to be a 'special snowflake'
where you can be recognized for being minimally exceptional.
Honestly it undermines the competitive spirit when everybody wins. I remember a game in little league
where we got thrashed 21-0, and we didn't get anything for it, but we sucked up getting our asses handed
to us, and played better.
Looking at it from one perspective, it just shows that it feels so much more rewarding to actually earn
an achievement, rather than being handed a pointless thing. Life doesn't reward those for failure, so
what is the point in teaching children that it does? People are mental.

What is winning? Is it doing better than the arbitrary group of people who happen to show up to the same event, or is it actually accomplishing something?

By giving awards to the best, we seek to reward people for doing well. What if everyone who attends does well? What if everyone makes an A on the final. Must we grade on a curve?

Suppose a dozen people run a marathon. Should we award only those who crossed the line first? All of them ran a marathon. That's an accomplishment in and of itself. What of someone who showed up and only ran a half marathon? Well, that's still something too.

We shouldn't award participation. We should award accomplishing something. And that something doesn't always have to be relative to what others do.

Let's not forget that everyone has a need to feel self-esteem and of value. Acknowledging that is not a "snowflake" mentality. That's human compassion.

It's okay to compete, and to encourage competition, and reward achievement, but I hope we can keep from treating victory as the only thing that matters. For some people joining in a competition they have no chance of winning is an accomplishment, and for others simply being accepted as part of the group is equally important. How does it diminish someone's victory to have other people's participation acknowledged?

I have to disagree with Matt and Graham. I understand where they are coming from, but building false self esteem does not help that person. When they grow up and get their ass handed to them, they can't find a way to rebound and pick themselves back up.
I am a production manager at an electronics company and in the last few years I have been trying to deal with this generation. They have no sense of pride or willingness to get the job done, yet they are always "hey, look what I did today". They think I am crazy when I tell them they are falling way behind. Then when I show them how they compare with older employees, I get the standard "well they have been here longer than me". They cannot grasp that those same people set those standards when they were their age. Then they want the same pay as the guy who has 25 years experience.
The world is not a fair place after you turn 18. Its dog eat dog, has been and will be. These kids are not prepared for it. I have two nephews who have degrees in electrical engineering. Both live at home and do not have a job in their field. They tell me they are waiting for the right job to come along. Both had offers with decent pay, but they thought they deserved more. One has not worked in their field for 3 years, the other is coming up on 2 years. They are both pretty much on the brink of being outdated in field. Their parents paid for their tuitions and about ready to blow their brains out. One works in Mcdonalds, the other works at Macy's as a stock boy. At least they are working, most of these kids are not, but what a waste. I give them a hard time when I see them. To them, I am just a mean old man. But their parents are what made them this way. They were pampered from the day they were born. Now my sister is worried about her future because they are slowly eating her savings away.
Failure is a critical tool that defines our lives. It is what distinguishes us as either being the sheep or the wolf. I am not just talking about being rich and well off. This applies to all aspects of life. It one of the reasons you see a lot of older people doing the jobs of teenagers. They are more reliable and get the job done instead of playing on their phone.

@Raven484 I don't think we entirely disagree. Using your example of a production company that tracks whether people meet quota or not -- either someone meets quota, or they don't. It's not a participation trophy to reward someone for meeting quota. It is a participation trophy to reward everyone regardless of whether they meet quota or not. I'm saying that in many cases, we can reward people based on the results that they deliver, not based on how they perform relative to others in a stack-ranked system. If all the kids actually have excellent science projects, then they should all be rewarded.

In games, failure is relative to how other players perform. In the real world, failure is often absolute and harsh. Does the rocket blow up when we try to launch it? Did we manufacture all the widgets that we need to deliver today? Did we meet the deadline? These are very binary, either we succeed or we fail. Not everything is quite that binary, but my point is that we should reward more than just comparative performance in a competition.

I definitely agree that it sounds like your nephews aren't pursuing a very good career strategy. To get the job that they want, they will need experience, which they are not accruing at the moment. I'd encourage any adult still living in their parents's household to move out and create something of their own if they have the opportunity. Those problems are probably more common in Gen Y/Z than in previous generations, though we shouldn't generalize too much. I'm in Gen Y and definitely don't meet that description, and I know both people who aren't really pursuing their career as much as they should, and those who totally are.

Statistically, we can't say that Gen Y isn't working. They are currently the largest generation in the work force.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/11/millennials-largest-generation-us-labor-force/

Raven, I thought I was the old and crabby guy here. You're sound almost as curmudgeonly as @Iain Aschendale.

Do you really think that getting participation trophies made your nephews lazy? Or that if you'd gotten one you'd be like them?* Tough love doesn't have to be mean love (which is probably an oxymoron).

I know there are lots of helicopter parents and lazy parents and over-the-top educators out there, but it's a lot more complex than simply trying to make or let people feel good about themselves. Tis how it's always been and always will be. Sometimes you can cajole or scare or talk people into working harder, but usually they have to find their own way.

*I know you see the trophies as a symptom rather than a cause, but I disagree that the trophies of themselves are contributors.