Taylor won the 2024 State Championship at the Skills USA Competition for Nurse Assisting!
This was written by my wonderful and very smart daughter, Taylor, for an AP Language assignment. She is a currently a junior in high school. She read it to me, and I said “Can I put that on my website?” I loved it, and agree with so much of what she says here! Can you see that she grew up on the football sidelines with a Head Coach and Athletic Director as her daddy?!
A key challenge that faces America today is the fact that our society has become a participation trophy society. This factor will cause a noticeable decline in the society of our nation, it will be noticeable in the levels of laziness and lack of motivation that will continue to increase. If this nation’s society continues to normalize awards for minimal efforts, no one will feel the need to put in maximum effort anymore. This will lead to a lazy, unmotivated population of people.
What is a participation trophy?
A participation trophy is when an individual is given a trophy or award for being a part of something, not because they did it well or were the best at it, but just for simply showing up. One example of this may be a youth flag football team who had an 0-10 season. At their end of the season pizza party their coach calls each of them up, congratulates them on playing, and hands them a little trophy. Now, is this child’s whole view going to change on life right then and there because they got an award even if they lost all of their games? No, of course not. But this moment still sends a message to children whether adults choose to see it or not, that trophies will continue to be given even if you didn’t win.
Having lived sixteen years of life there have been many end of the season sports parties, school award ceremonies, and even report cards at the conclusion of a school year in which it can be clearly seen awards and good grades that have not been earned had been given out. Things that used to be a huge accomplishment had started to turn into an, ¨Oh everyone gets that, it’s really not that special.¨ Trophies, awards, and even some accomplishments stopped becoming the goal because they did not feel as big anymore.
On the other side of this argument, there are people who fully support participation trophies. They believe that these little trophies and awards given to children, and even individuals later in life, are beneficial rather than harmful. They make the claim that it can help boost their egos and encourage them to continue trying. This claim may have some truth to it, but not when you look at the big picture. These receivers of participation trophies will stay satisfied with the bare minimum. This will cause laziness and not living up to their full potential. Could giving participation trophies help boost peoples egos? Yes it can, but with that being said it surely will not outweigh the consequences of what these participatory awards can do in the long run. One day, the receivers of these trophies are going to have to step out into the world. They are going to have to learn they need to work hard to accomplish things and that in the real world out there, there are no participation trophies.
It is a popular thought that this seemingly miniscule problem could have no way of affecting our society and nation. That claim would be false due to the fact that the values kids are being taught early in life are going to stick with them. This includes being able to work the bare minimum, or even below it, and still receive a trophy. People need to consider that these kids receiving participation trophies are going to grow up thinking that is the normal standard. Every one of those kids are going to have to face the harsh reality of having to do hard, true work for accomplishments and awards sooner or later. So why not teach it from the very beginning? As a society, there should be no more participation trophies. Trophies, awards, and medals should be given to those who earn them and nobody else.
