Participation Trophies – 8 Reasons They’re Actually a Good Thing

For years now there has been a heated debate amongst children’s sport leaders and parents—to give or not to give participation trophies to children, regardless of whether the team wins or loses.

Those against participation trophies worry they will instill in young athletes a sense of entitlement and a satisfaction with mediocrity. Others cite participation as a way for helicopter parents to protect their precious babies from feeling negative emotions.

But research indicates this may not be the case.

Today, we’ll look at 8 ways participation trophies can benefit children and their competitive experience.

1. It Celebrates Participation in a Healthy Activity

In today’s high-tech world, it’s easy for kids to become obsessed with digital distractions. Kid-centric movies and videos are always available, and gaming can eat up hours of time.

Kids who are part of a sports team are likely getting much-needed exercise on a regular basis. And, given that 25% of Aussie children are overweight, anything that will encourage kids to get out and participate in a team sport is a good idea.

2. It Promotes Healthy Socialization

Participation trophies aren’t limited to sporting teams—many academic teams pass them out as well.

If participation trophies encourage children to participate in any type of team environment, it can have a positive impact on their socialization. Spending face-to-face time with their peers helps children build strong and lasting friendships and participating in team competitions allows them to support one another, win or lose.

Being part of a team allows children to build strong self-esteem and a deep sense of belonging. Why not provide them with a small memento of this special time in their lives?

3. They Create a Sense of Achievement

Regardless of what some may say, being part of a team isn’t just about winning. Children who participate work hard to improve themselves, committing significant time to bettering themselves for their team.

Participation trophies let kids know that, whether they win or lose, their efforts mattered and were appreciated by their team.

4. They Encourage a Growth Mindset

All too often, we tend to associate winning with being “good” and losing as “failure”. This association often causes children on losing teams to leave competition for good.

Participation trophies, when presented alongside the tenets of a growth mindset, can encourage children to use setbacks as a learning opportunity. What caused the team to lose? What have I learned from this experience that will make me more successful in the next competition?

Participation trophies help children know their efforts were appreciated…and using a growth mindset gets them excited for the next opportunity to compete.

5. They Teach Kids to Lose Honorably

There’s nothing worse than a sore loser. Participation trophies don’t take anything away from the winners, but they offer the losing team a way to receive acknowledgement for their efforts.

Participation trophies put a positive spin on coming in short of first place and incentivise children to work harder next time to win the top prize.

6. They Encourage Healthy Competition

Ask any kid and they’ll tell you—while they appreciate the acknowledgement of their hard work through a participation trophy, they would prefer to win the actual prize.

Contrary to some opinions, handing out participation trophies does not instill in kids any sort of satisfaction with mediocrity. Rather, receiving a participation award often drives children to work harder for the next competition. It helps them focus on being more successful in the future.

It’s also worth noting that the most competitive children don’t care about trophies at all. They compete against themselves, pushing themselves to be the best in their field. That sort of drive is innate and is not affected by any sort of trophy.

7. They Encourage Teamwork

When you are part of a team, everyone has a role to play to ensure the team achieves their goals. While winning is certainly one of the goals, it isn’t the only goal.

Perhaps your team wants to see marked improvement in defensive efforts. Maybe you want to see your overall wins increase. There are a variety of goals a team can accomplish beyond coming in first place…why not reward those admirable achievements with a trophy?

8. They Put Winning into Perspective

Some of the people who are the loudest detractors of participation trophies are coaches and parents who believe winning first place makes winners superior to those they’ve defeated.

Yet nothing could be further from the truth.

While winning is an achievement that should absolutely be celebrated, participation trophies help keep everything in perspective. Winning is a great thing…but it shouldn’t be everything.

Whether you are looking for sports awards, engraved plaques, or custom participation trophies, we hope you will let our dedicated staff create the perfect award for your needs.

Contact us today for a custom quote. We can promise you quality workmanship and absolute satisfaction with your award.