I am so happy that this is a topic. I have felt that we, adults, are sending the wrong message to the kids' of today. Everybody is a winner - I never got that. I played alot of sports as a kid and there was always a winner and a loser. I learnt how to be a great loser and a winner. I've always stressed with my kids' that you can't always win, it's what you put in that matters.

Yes, we give way too many trophy's out. They should only give out trophy's to the winner or just the winning team. If you lose or did not come in first then no trophy. The trophy means nothing when everyone gets one. Only the best of the best who worked hard should get the winning prize. Too bad if the kids cry - in the real world, not everyone is going to get a trophy.

As a mom of four and a martial art school owner...I have a strong opinion about this! Trophies...NO not everyone should get one. Kids should develop their own personal gratification from participating and trying. They should develop their own personal inner desire to achieve more to set a goal and attain it or not. Kids need to learn that winning is good but losing is ok too! We have a motto: winning and losing should look exactly the same to a spectator....win humbly and lose gracefully. When did it stop being such a sin to have a child cry due to disappointment? Disappointment is a part of life and kids need to learn how to handle disappointment. How else will they learn to handle it later on in life when there isn't anyone handing out awards. Hopefully, disappointment or losing can in turn light a fire under them to try harder, to think differently, to self-motivate. As a parent your job is to emotionally support your child through the disappointment and to teach your child to congratulate an be truly happy for the kid or kids that did receive recognition. When was the last time, your son or daughter said, "wow mom, Jenny got an award today for __________" I am so proud of her because she really worked hard for it". Or better yet, "boy mom, Jenny is pretty upset today, she worked really hard for something and didn't quite get it but I was there for her and she's ok." A better question, is why do all these parents feel "their" child is "entitled" to these awards - not every kid is going to be the best...so why do you feel better about your child if he/she has a little paper validating your child?? Is the award for them or for you?

I think you are right on with this -- the trophies are proliferating! And I also think you're very brave to take on this culturally-accepted practice. Do you think you could go after the birthday party goody bags next, please? I hate them.

I really don't agree with handing out trophies for participation or for recognition. I think we should eliminate awards altogether from more things. It seems to me that the whole participation trophy idea is a direct response to parents who get crazy competitive and push their kids to win on one side and the parents who want to protect their kids from disappointment on the other, which is sad because the awards, however they are distributed, seem to be more about the parents than the children. Hand a trophy out for participation, and they realize that they are just being placated and condescended to pretty quickly. Hand out trophies to the "best" in every competition and send the message that people who win are just plain better, so the effort put in has been wasted if you haven't won or aren't going to fight to win next time. Either way, doing something for the passion of it is highly discouraged, whether the talents lean toward athletic or academic. It's either all about the grade or all about making everyone equal, and neither of those are particularly healthy attitudes. Frankly, I find it really disturbing that children are developing, at a younger and younger age, a dependence on some sort of material reward for activities they should be pursuing for enjoyment or exploration. I don't have anything against sports, but can't kids just play a sport because it's fun and practice because they want to be good at it and help their team? Doesn't playing a sport for the trophy defeat the whole purpose of what they should be learning? I don't see how they can ever learn to set goals for themselves based on their genuine interests and talents and pursue them if we apply a carrot or stick mentality to every. single. thing. they do. And they certainly won't learn that hard work can be its own reward. Sorry for the soapbox, I just have a real beef with the constant reliance on external rewards and punishments as motivation. What about self-motivation, self-discipline, and self-reliance? At some point, we won't be there as guides, and they will have to find their own reasons for getting the job done. Hopefully material rewards won't be the only thing that drives them.

My daughters are figure skaters. The eldest does have a lot of trophys, but she has had to earn every one by winning something. There have been many many competitions where she has left with nothing right from the earliest levels. Yes, when she was 6 she was very disappointed if she didn't win, but she learned right from the start that you congratulate the winner and leave with your head held high. She now competes at a level where she doesn't win many trophies, and when she is lucky enough to win one, she is over the moon, she knows it's a major accomplishment and she has every right to be proud of it. Conversely, she also does dancing and has just moved to a dancing school who give out trophies when you pass an exam. She didn't give that trophy a second glance. Passing an exam is an expectation not a major accomplishment, and she really wasn't interested in the trophy she received for that at all.

I think that they should earn a prize. Our kids should not get a prize for just participating. What about the kids that stand out more, or play better than the kid that just sat on the bench? That is like me getting a raise at work for just showing up. Not doing anything all day, but just being there.