Menu

Multilingual park and tourist signs


To Award Or Not: Calling A Truce

Ask any seasoned coach and he or she will agree that their job involves more than ensuring that their team tops the league. Through sports, children build various aspects of their character as they nurture their talent.

Issuing trophies to children for their participation in sporting events has become an increasingly common trend in sports contests.

The Argument Against Participation Trophies

Participation trophies have the potential to cultivate a culture of laziness and/or under-performance in sports contests. The subtle message that a participation trophy sends to a young player is that they'll still get rewarded even when they don't excel. Yet life isn't quite that simple.

Thanks to the misguided notion, children could end up developing a sense of entitlement which might not work in their favor as they grow.

On the extreme end, a participation trophy might also cushion a young player from the reality that he or she might not be good at the sport in question. A child shielded from this reality might fail to develop a keen interest in other sporting activities in which they're likely to excel.

Children are known to have a greater sense of motivation when they know that their excellence will be recognized fully and rewarded commensurately. A trophy would be the most befitting reward.

The Argument For Participation Trophies

It's not all about winning. This is the underlying argument. Sporting events are meant to help children develop certain life skills as they build social bonds with their peers. For example, the willingness to concede defeat is an integral component of great sportsmanship. A losing team should not only be willing to accept defeat, it should also be ready to accept the consequences that come with defeat. From this, young players learn how to deal with disappointment, which is part of day-to-day life in the real world.

Every child needs a pat on the back for the effort they put in during a sporting event regardless of the outcome.

The Truce

The problem with issuing participation trophies is that they're literally miniature versions of the reward given to a winning team. This could create a false sense of equality with the winning team among losing participants.

The physical difference between a medallion and a trophy creates a greater difference between winners and participants in a sporting contest while still recognizing participants for their effort. Could this be the truce in the long-standing argument for/against participation trophies in children's sporting events?

About Me

Multilingual park and tourist signs

If you live in a diverse neighbourhood that has signs that lets park users know what is expected of them (including any limitations on keeping dogs on leashes, picking up dog poo and not smoking), this can help the neighbourhood users get along much better. Many people from different cultures are also interested in the history of shared public spaces such as knowing what buildings used to be on the park site and which person or event the park was named after. If you are looking to erect some multilingual signs in your park or public space, then read on for hints on how to maximise their effectiveness.

Tags