Equality or Compititon

Do we give children too many trophies or should children under a certain age egg a trophy? In 2003 my sister participated in competitive cheerleading. She was only three but they had routines that they had to do. Everyone in her age group got a trophy for participation. The trophy made her proud & want to keep up the hard work; she did not know that it was a trophy for participation, she thought it was for her hard work. In 2013 debate.org took a survey and 73% of people said children should NOT get a participation trophy and their main argument was that it will not teach kids to try hard. 27% of the people who took the survey said YES, kids should get trophies because they worked up enough courage to go out and try. I have very mixed feelings about this. Kids have a different mind set than adults. When a child sees someone with a trophy and they don't have one then they feel sad. I believe that trophies should not be given for participating but a ribbon or something should be given to children under a certain age. That way they know they did good but if they want a trophy then they need to try harder. But not every age group should get a ribbon or trophy just for participating. Competition is healthy and they need to be taught that in the real world you have to try your hardest if you want something; there's always going to be someone who wants the trophy just as bad as you, but are going to practice and try really hard to get it and if you don't try hard then you won't get the trophy.