All-Star You Get A Trophy, I Get A Trophy, We All Get A Trophy! Good Or Bad

[CheerBank]

As per non-cp, participation trophies should stop by age 6 (he is now 11 1/2). He said that once you are older than 6, "everyone is a winner" no longer applies and that is just life.

 

[uhhlyssa01]

I think there is some value in given trophies for only superior performance... I think given awards to a child for any kind of performance or lack of performance, dilutes and devalued the truly talented athletes in the sport. Matter of fact, it promotes and encourages an untalented child not to move on and find their true talents whether it be in sports, music, arts or dance... Some parents can become truly delusional and think because their child received a "token" trophy that if they pay for privates or push the untalented child to practice more and they too can become that next superstar...

PS: Worse part in this Trophy Bonanza, the quality of all the trophies are poorly constructed and cheap. Matter of fact, I noticed the shelf life of these new trophies is about 4 to 5 years before they break or fall apart...Unlike, the 30+ year old trophies that I have that are still in good shape.

You can say the same thing about cars and electronics. Nothing is "made like it used to", yet it still cost 3x more.

 

[quietmom]

This happens all the time with special needs athletes and the expectation for the parents is to just deal with it and be thankful. With many competitions they title all the special needs teams "national champions" (yes, that actually has happened).

I hate this concept more than I hate kale.

 

[Tator tots]

Most kids passed the age of 9, know they didn't win, or place. After a certain age, to continue to say "Everyone is a winner and you all get a trophy" all the time only sets them up for some hard life lessons later....and I think a little condescending actually, but that's just me.

A sport is a competition! There are winners, losers and everyone in between. Stop with all the faux trophies.

 

[Official OWECheer]

This happens all the time with special needs athletes and the expectation for the parents is to just deal with it and be thankful. With many competitions they title all the special needs teams "national champions" (yes, that actually has happened).

I hate this concept more than I hate kale.

Well that's insulting. The kids know what it is to win and to lose, and what the places mean.

 

[SL&AM]

I was watching Real Sport with Brian Gumbel and they had a interesting segment concerning awarding every participants on a sport team trophies. According to the experts giving out unearned awards dilute the value of the trophies and athletes tends to slack off... What do everyone think about this Oprahlike awarding of trophies? Is this helping or hurting athletes and the sport?

Horrible. Awful. Ridiculous. Bad. Should never be the norm. #ThatIsWhyTheyMakeMedalsandRibbons

I don't care if you're a Tiny Level 1 Prep team who practices 1 hour a week or an World's LVL 5 team who is in the gym 6-8 hours a week, trophies go to winners only (In a perfect world, this would be top 3...but it's not, so I'd settle for Top 5 at the average competition, and Top 10 for the big ones---and that is the team trophy, no individual trophies for team sports unless they competed individually). Only, only, only. Did I mention only.

CP's first experience with AS Cheer wasn't exactly the best---did they place well at times, yes. Did they also have an experience where they placed dead last? Yup. And did that last place, no trophy, only getting a medal, lack of celebration light the butts of that team of 5 years olds? Yes. Did they do much better the next competition, did they focus more at practice, did they have less down time, and remember how much it sucked to lose? Yes!

I allow CP to dedicate her time to this sport because it's not a trophy for all sport. That is what I firmly believe participation medals and ribbons are for---those are the things you take home because mom and dad just paid an event $100+ dollars for you to be judged. That trophy...you better earn that.


Editing to add for those who's kids are well into teenager hood---the new parenting trend is to skip the games at birthday parties in favor of crafts so that everyone takes something home and no one is the 'winner' of a game. #headmeetsdesk

 

[Mndl]

My cp is 7 and has 5 dance trophies that everyone gets after the recital and 4 gymnastics trophies for her end of year show. She always used to be so excited about getting them, but this was the first year she said she couldn't wait to compete and win a "real trophy" b/c the ones she has now don't really count. So yeah, kids really do realize how silly they are after a certain age. That said, my older boys have some very nice end of the year lacrosse and football "trophies" but they never thought they were any thing more than an end of the season, thanks for playing kind of thing.

 

[Perkyninjamomma]

Jumping off of the jackets things - my athletes don't see trophies as something more than a participation award. Jackets are the real "trophy".

If it's not a jacket or a ring.. My cp is like nah. And gives any participation crap to some little girl watching. She is 11. And loves to COMPETE. (We are in all star competition cheer, right?!)


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[WinstonsGirl]

I don't mind this so much for the younger kids. Most of them don't even seem to care about the trophy. They just want to hear their team called so they can cheer. It's also problematic in terms of the Long-Term Athlete Development model, where kids shouldn't even be beginning to train seriously until they are 12-13 or so. But that will never happen in cheer obviously.

So for younger kids - tiny, mini, I don't mind awards for all. After that, nope. Kids need to learn how to lose and how to move on from that. It takes work but my athlete are disappointed with losses for a few minutes and then move on to how they can get better.

At our last competition, they had a stunt bobble that dropped them to third. Half the team was bawling in the hall after, cos it was our big competition. I told them they had 1 minute left to cry and then they were done and going back in to watch and cheer on other teams. Losing teaches kids to deal with disappointment and push past it cos not everyone is going to win all the time

 

[Jolette]

Long-Term Athlete Development model

This! I'm really only a lurker here but this topic really interests me especially as I see (at least here in Canada) sports move towards following these guidelines. Soccer and Figure Skating and even gymnastics to some extent (probably many more but these are the sports that I am familiar with). I wonder if someday cheer will make any changes? My guess is no but maybe eventually...

 

[XtremeWpg]

Maybe it's because I don't have kids but...

Rewarding an athlete for effort shouldn't come in the form of a trophy from an event. The fact is, in cheerleading, sports and life, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I know I learned more from every loss or last place finish that I did from winning. I feel like when you start not keeping score or lumping 4th place down together, you eliminate the drive to compete and improve. If we're all getting a trophy anyway, why try? We all get the same prize anyway.

I also wonder what this generation of kids where 'everyone is a winner' will be like when it becomes evident in life that not everyone is...job interviews, getting into colleges. To me, winning and losing at a soccer game when you're young, teaches you to handle disappointments and learn to work harder.

Plus- isn't giving trophies to everyone expensive? I haven't been to competition that does that except for 1st place. And for stunt groups everyone got a medal of their place.

 

[kristenthegreat]

Maybe it's because I don't have kids but...

Rewarding an athlete for effort shouldn't come in the form of a trophy from an event. The fact is, in cheerleading, sports and life, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I know I learned more from every loss or last place finish that I did from winning. I feel like when you start not keeping score or lumping 4th place down together, you eliminate the drive to compete and improve. If we're all getting a trophy anyway, why try? We all get the same prize anyway.

I also wonder what this generation of kids where 'everyone is a winner' will be like when it becomes evident in life that not everyone is...job interviews, getting into colleges. To me, winning and losing at a soccer game when you're young, teaches you to handle disappointments and learn to work harder.

Plus- isn't giving trophies to everyone expensive? I haven't been to competition that does that except for 1st place. And for stunt groups everyone got a medal of their place.

In America, it's dragged into the college/school realm of 'Every Kid Must Pass.' Parents berating teachers when their kid isn't doing well (maybe because the kid just doesn't care). Holding a kid back a year because they failed? Clutch my pearls!

 

[cheer25mom]

My CP's dance teacher has always said "I don't hand out trophies just for showing up. If that's what you are looking for, this isn't the place for you." ITA with that sentiment. Kids shouldn't get a reward just for showing up to play.


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[catlady]

Trophies are like diamonds, the more rare and harder you have to work for them, the more they are appreciated. Once they flood the market, they lose their value.

 

[Pebbles49]

@XtremeWpg,@kristenthegreat, I totally agree with your statements on this and even in this Real Sport segment, they eventually got around to examine grade inflation too. The program mentioned how easy it is for all students, even those in college to receive A's&B's and now students are even given C's for just showing up for classes...

Plus- isn't giving trophies to everyone expensive? I haven't been to competition that does that except for 1st place. And for stunt groups everyone got a medal of their place.

In the Real Sport with Brian Gumbel segment, of course, it mostly focused on sports like baseball, football and soccer, but they did eventually talk about the extent that this diluted and devalued of awards affect children and young adults in other areas too.
Unfortunately, I think the parents are paying for these trophies with inflated entry fees and since parents are paying so much for their child/children to compete, here is where ideas of giving something for participating. I think, there is that thought that you must leave the event with something. Even when children attend birthday parties, everybody must get 'goodie bags,' which we did not do 20 or 30 years ago.
I mentioned in an earlier post, even the quality of these trophies that are given to athletes now are cheap and comes with no names and non-descript, not really special. This is disappointed because in my family, we have a trophy case in the family area with trophies and everyone of my daughter's trophies (less than 4 years) are broken, but my husband and I(30+y.o) still have beautiful trophies and memorabilia from our youths with our names and description of the events on them, but my daughter is not going to have these beautiful trophies to show her children and talk about the special feelings when receiving them...