Persuasive Essay Sample: Participation and Attendance Awards for Children Should Be Abolished

📌Category: Child development, Psychology
📌Words: 571
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 20 March 2022

There is an unclear idea of what deserves to be awarded in children’s sports. To some, it is thought that children should receive awards for their dedication rather than their achievements, but contradicted by the belief that children should not receive awards unless for outstanding achievements. Although children gain a sense of teamwork through participation and attendance awards, children should not receive awards for their attendance or participation because they take away the value of others’ accomplishments and encourage adequacy rather than excellence. 

When participation and attendance are frequently given out to all participants, despite their efforts, they ultimately diminish the value of every award. Although some believe that participation and attendance awards teach kids the value of their work, it is actually the opposite. Source C says “If every player receives a trophy for merely showing up, the truly exceptional are slighted.” When exceptional participants are held on the same pedestal as average participants, it not only discourages the exceptional participants from working hard, but makes the average participants feel inferior. In addition, awards also lose value as an item overall. Awards become expected for minimal efforts such as showing up (Source C), ultimately supporting the unrealistic and defeatist ideology that everyone is a winner, and diminishing the value awards are supposed to hold.

Despite the idea that participation and attendance awards are positively influencing children and teaching them important values, this was disproved by another study. Providing awards to everyone actually negatively affects average participants. In Source A, Merryman claims that “undeserved praise makes kids with low self-esteem believe they can’t live up to their own hype.” Despite the belief that participation and attendance awards encourage kids to work hard, it actually coerces them to withdraw even farther (Source A). In addition, for participants who already are aware of their accomplishments and hard work, “overpraised children were more likely to be narcissistic two years later,” (Source A). When children are aware they stand out amongst their peers and get rewarded for that and their participation, it leads them to believe they are superior to others, and constantly seek vindication for their actions (Source A). This is an unhealthy expectation that is simply not realistic, eventually weakening a child’s perception of when they are truly deserving of an award and recognition in real life situations.

While attendance and participation awards were designed to motivate and inspire children to return and work hard, which is an example of positive reinforcement, these awards are not supporting what they were designed for. Attendance and participation awards are ultimately praising adequacy over effort, praising kids for something they didn’t do, rather than something they did (Source F). In doing so, a child’s luck that they were not sick and also always had a ride to practice and events is praised more than their legitimate effort. Attendance awards in particular are “demonizing the weak,” (Source F) making children feel unaccomplished for things out of their control such as getting sick or not having a way of getting to practices/events. Attendance awards are not motivating children to show up more, they are embarrassing the ones who couldn’t and making them feel incompetent. 

Despite what some may believe, participation and attendance awards are not teaching children important life skills, and should therefore be abolished. It is essential that children learn the value of hard work (Source E), and providing tangible rewards weakens the motivation behind the child (Source E). Participation should be recognized with encouraging words rather than objects, and attendance should no longer be acknowledged as a whole. Although there are some children who work hard and value their participation trophies, these awards should be motivating children to work harder for something they want, rather than settle for a participation trophy.

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