A popular childhood idea is the “Participation Trophy.” They’re a staple of kindergarten and elementary school; as long as you try your hardest, you’re a winner. While the idea is overall positive, the mentality built from that can be detrimental. You’re in middle school, your baseball team is losing, and you strike out. You’ve lost and refuse to shake hands with the other school because you’re upset. Then you get a ‘gold’ trophy anyway, because you tried your best.
Two things are being done here. First, bad attitudes are being rewarded. Not everyone is a sore loser, but giving every kid a trophy at the end of the day you’re saying; “It’s okay to throw a fit, you’re a winner anyway.” Second, you’re not allowing kids to build mental toughness. Values need to be instilled early in a person’s childhood. If you teach the wrong things, they will be impossible to reverse later. “There are no losers” is the wrong value to teach kids at an early age.
There are winners and losers. Whether you’re talking about kid sports, games, or even trying to get a job there are winners and losers. By saying “no losers” you’re taking away a fundamental lesson from your kid. Even winners don’t win at everything. When they can’t accept loss, they don’t learn to reflect on their failure. Maybe they didn’t study enough, or didn’t practice enough, or they got too emotional during a game and let it cloud their judgement. When kids aren’t given the encouragement to look back at their mistakes there is no improvement. There is no drive to learn because no matter what they’re a winner.
Dr. Robb Bell, a sports psychology coach, wrote an article on something else that participation trophies do. Going back to instilling the right values in kids from an early age, participation trophies are a way of saying “if you do your best there’s a reward for you.” Dr. Bell opens up about the differences between internal and external motivations to do something, and that there’s a reason “80% of kids stop playing by age 14.” The article continues with the mention of West Point Academy, a military academy in New York. Over 11,000 cadets were examined by a Yale Researcher based on their motivation for entering the academy. Cadets that had strong internal motivations were seen to be more likely to graduate, receive promotions, and commissions. Meanwhile, cadets who showed external motivations like just wanting a better paying job were noticeably less successful.
The reasoning for this is simple. External motivations are weak. Reality can be far different from expectations, cadets may have wanted a better paying job and realized the pay difference might not be substantial. There might be more hard work involved than they were willing to put in. External motivations can also change, and that affects how much effort you’re willing to put into your goal.
When I was younger there was a quote I heard. “Winners lose even more than losers. They’re really Super Losers. The difference is they didn’t give up.” The lesson being taught is that failure is acceptable, giving up isn’t. Instead of teaching kids there’s no such thing as losing, we should say they can always give it one more try. As a parent, you’ll encourage them to try harder and make differences in their approach. That’s how you’ll raise kids who succeed.
Photo by MiguelPhoto on Unsplash
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