Should Young Athletes Get Paid?

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Kids have received trophies for participating in sports for many years. Whether the child’s team wins or not, most teams seem to give out participation trophies these days. However, this has led to controversy over the ethics of either raising or demeaning kids’ self-esteem, even when failures and mistakes are made. All young athletes should get a trophy because it helps increase their self-esteem and shows them how teamwork is as important as success. First, young athletes should all get trophies because it helps increase their self-esteem. Self-esteem is a big part of one’s childhood. Watching a peer receive a trophy and not receiving one yourself can be degrading. Any kind of honor can make a young kid feel as if he or she meant something to the …show more content…
Receiving trophies for failure doesn’t necessarily mean that they are becoming weaker in thinking that they will always receive a trophy for it, or that it will lower their self-esteem. Because they can’t live up to the “hype” they receive, it means that they can acknowledge their failure and keep it as a sign to work harder. Thus, trophies can help raise kids’ self-esteem by acknowledging their failure, but not making them feel debilitated for not winning. Another key point for why all young athletes should receive trophies is because it can teach them how teamwork is as important as success. The “Participation awards” begin to instill the idea in a child’s mind that working with a unit can lead to success. Does success always mean coming first? No. Success can mean working collaboratively and becoming a team” (Abate 6). This indicates that trophies can help teach kids life lessons about teamwork. Children being able to work as a team is very important because as they grow older, they need to know how to work in groups to accomplish the same