As a child, I played sports. I played Baseball ( which I loved), soccer (which I hated, but have grown to love), basketball (which I sucked at), and I took karate (which I also sucked at). In each one of those sports, we never won gold, yet i have a collection of trophies perched atop my window sill commemorating my participation in those sports. The more I think about it, the more it irks me, the more it angers me. It's rather patronizing, in my opinion, to not have earned something, but have it given to you anyway. It makes the trophy relatively meaningless, so what's the point in getting one? I suppose that's where my enormous sense of pride comes from. I don't want anything handed to me if I didn't earn it. Let the kids cry, it will pass. It will build character, it will make them try harder, do better. If you shield them from that, you're failing as a parent.
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[–] kokakamora 0 points 1 point 1 point (+1|-0) ago
The only time my kids got "trophies for everyone" was pee-wee soccer teams. By seven years old and playing club level that was gone. Only the division winners and tournament winners get trophies. One of my kids went three years of soccer with nothing. This was also the same when my kids played rec basketball. Even in a rec league, only the division winners got rewards. So I don't think the whole participation trophy trope is all that prevalent. I'm in middle America suburbia, btw, maybe it's different elsewhere.