Mindful Sport Performance Podcast

Ep. 68: Participation Trophies in Youth Sports: Pros vs Cons

• Dr. Keith Kaufman & Dr. Tim Pineau • Season 5 • Episode 8

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Are participation trophies merely shiny objects that distract from the true essence of competition, or do they play a key role in building self-esteem and encouraging future sport involvement? In this episode, we explore the pros and cons with a critical eye, weighing the possibility that these awards might be diluting the significance of hard work and resilience, while also acknowledging that kids are often more perceptive about the value of these trophies than we give them credit for. 

The episode culminates with a broader discussion on how sports shape kids' beliefs and values, particularly as they stand at the crossroads of either deepening their involvement or stepping away from competitive play. This conversation contributes to a dialogue on the importance of intrinsic motivation, the overemphasis on winning, and how mindfulness practices can help reinforce a healthy perspective on self-worth that transcends the playing field.

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Mindful Sport Performance Enhancement

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Very much appreciated, 

Keith, Tim, and Taylor 

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Keith Kaufman:

Hi and welcome back to the Mindful Support Performance podcast. I'm Dr Keith Kaufman, I'm Dr Tim Fanel and I know we've been having Taylor Brown, our wonderful producer, join us on some of these roundtable discussion episodes lately. Unfortunately, he's not able to be with us today, At least not right now. He could surprise us and sign on a little bit later. I guess we'll have to see. So, Tim, it's just you and me to discuss a pretty interesting issue, I think.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, yeah, no, I've been really looking forward to this one.

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, it's interesting. I know this was on our schedule and you just said, right before we started recording, that you're still not sure how you feel about it. So I am personally very interested to see what your reactions are in real time to what comes up, because this is a controversial one and, I think, one that will be fascinating to take a mindful view of, and so what we're going to talk about today are participation trophies. Are they good, are they not good? What is the debate about? How do we understand this? It's certainly something that comes up in our discussions and doing sports psychology work, and both of us have young kids, and I know mine is heavily involved in youth sport. I don't know if yours is yet, but certainly this has come up quite a bit in my family as well.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, when he was three my son did kind of sign of hesitant to call it soccer, soccer balls, but now he does taekwondo. But it's not competitive, at least not yet the way they structure it. They call it tiny tigers. He's a tiny tiger until he turns six and then he can be a white belt, and so there's no competitive aspect yet, which I think maybe Are there trophies.

Keith Kaufman:

Does he get a trophy, though, for participating? No, no there's not.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, I think, until they get to the point where they're given belts and stripes on the belts like that, there's not a way to recognize. It's no graduation, nothing like that.

Keith Kaufman:

Interesting, all right. So no tiny tiger trophies. That's an alliteration there.

Tim Pineau:

I like that, but at the end of soccer he got a medal. It's hanging actually right there A little medal for participating in the soccer, Is that?

Keith Kaufman:

something you feel pride in when you look at it, like that's right. When he was, you said how old he was like three. He did soccer so well. To help us frame the discussion, I did a little bit of research into, kind of what is the history of this debate. I guess there's a lot out there. I couldn't find too many reputable scholarly sources. You would say so in terms of what I was able to find, it was more through a Google search. So I guess take all of this with a grain of salt in terms of the sources. So I'll just put that out there. But what I was able to find is that apparently the first mention of the whole idea, the whole concept of participation trophies, dates back further than you would think. And actually maybe I'll put it to you what do you think? What would you guess? How far back do you think this goes, this idea?

Tim Pineau:

Oh man, I feel like I vaguely remember participation trophies when I was a kid, so maybe the 80s.

Keith Kaufman:

The 80s. That's a sound guess. I think if I hadn't done the research that I did, I would have guessed that too 1922. Whoa, okay, wow, 1922. So, again according to a source that I found, the first participation trophies date back to 1922, when the Ohio State Invitational High School Basketball Tournament gave participation trophies to every athlete who played in the tournament, in addition to also handing out awards to the winning players. So, in terms of the early estate I was able to find in my research again, I did not do a complete lit review on this, this is just from the searching I did to prep for this, but that really surprised me and I did see several sources that said this goes back to the early 20th century. So that date certainly resonates with some of those other sources.

Keith Kaufman:

Now, why you said the 80s is interesting because in pop culture, when this topic really caught fire in terms of being a controversy and I'm doing air quotes, I know we're on a podcast, you can't see them controversy in air quotes was really in the 90s. So you said you're a kid in the 80s. It was really in the 90s when this took off in terms of the debate and, of course, it's intricately tied into like parenting and some of how we understand that. One really interesting headline that I found this was something I found back from 2015 on CNN was just another kind of pop culture reference was, at the time, james Harrison, who was a pretty well-known former NFL linebacker his heyday was with the Steelers in 2015 posted on Instagram that he would be sending back the trophies his six and eight year old sons received until they earned quote a real trophy. And apparently, back in 2015, this sparked a pretty robust debate on social media about whether participation trophies were a good thing or not a good thing. And so, if you're interested in going back and tracing that lineage, there's some interesting celebrities who weighed in, and but that that is a more recent instance of this debate.

Keith Kaufman:

So, from reading through some of the articles that I was able to find on this, I tried to kind of aggregate what are the sides of this debate? Right? I mean, obviously different people are going to say different things. There's tons of psychologists, other professionals who have been interviewed about this, who have given their input on this, and so I wanted to try to say okay, like if I had to boil it all down to what seems like the general categories here. Here's what I would say.

Keith Kaufman:

So I was able to come up with six pros and six cons, at least in terms of how this debate goes. So I'm going to lay these on to you. Tim, I don't know if you want to take notes I realize 12 items might be, but just see how this kind of washes over. You see what your thoughts are, okay. So well, what do you want me to do? First, pros or cons. Let's start with the pros. Okay, so the pros. So what I have seen argued for participation trophies. Number one is that it can help boost kids' self-esteem, help them feel good about themselves for playing and activity as sport. Number two it can help enhance a sense of belonging, right, so help them feel appreciated, part of a group, accepted, if you will. Number three, which is maybe particularly interesting for where our conversation might go, was it's a way to reward effort rather than outcome, right?

Keith Kaufman:

So, regardless of whether you win you get some reward that reflects your participation, your effort, your sharing, your teamwork. So it's rewarding other components of sport besides just the outcome to win. A fourth pro is that it encourages future sport involvement, right. So if a kid gets a award, they feel good about it. It makes them want to come back for another season. Fifth is it can reinforce a sense of fun in the sport. I guess, depending on how the trophy works, it could be kind of a fun award or something that you can enjoy or engage with. And also I think relatedly maybe I'm sandwiching these together they could be separate, but I'm kind of relating. Also it gives them space to fail right. So it kind of goes more to you know, hey, if you mess up, if you lose, if you fail, you still get something right. That can be fun, that can be rewarding.

Keith Kaufman:

And the last pro that I saw, which is also, I think, quite interesting, is that kids are smart and they know the difference between getting an award for just showing up or participating and winning, and they don't have to be mutually exclusive, that a kid can tell the difference between the two. So I thought those are six interesting pros. Now I'm sure there's other sides out there. I'm sure there's other pros that maybe people who are listening have come across, but my best effort to kind of aggregate the core arguments, so again I'll summarize them one more time. So, to boost self-esteem, enhance a sense of belonging, to reward effort rather than just outcome, to encourage future sport involvement, to reinforce a spirit of fun and provide some space for failure. And also, kids know the difference. We don't have to treat them as though they can't tell the difference between a competitive trophy and a participation trophy. So do you want to react to those, or do you want me to just list the cons then next? That's a lot to hold, I know.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, yeah, okay, I'll react to these, just in. You know Well. So the last one doesn't feel like a pro as much as it feels like a non-con. Okay so like someone would say like oh, you're like they're not going to know the difference between what it really means to win there I go using air quotes. It's like no, no, no, it's fine, they'll know the difference, but that's not a pro of these participation trophies, and I guess that I mean to your point.

Tim Pineau:

I think that the rewarding effort piece certainly feels like pretty closely tied to a lot of what we talk about in terms of what's the value of intrinsic motivation and feeling. You know, feeling engaged in the process and not necessarily like overly invested in the outcome. But I think to was my initial thought. Like to get at that. It's like it's not just about a reward for showing up. It would, I think, would require a little bit more thought, like everyone gets an award for their unique effort. You know, like, yeah, you showed up every single time. Like no one else on the team was here for every single practice.

Tim Pineau:

Or like, yeah, you know best free throws, you know best dribbling superlatives yes, yes, to really say like oh, there are so many different ways to like have your effort, you know, be recognized. I haven't shown so, yeah, it's not just about being there, but like, yeah, like you, you, you provided a unique contribution, you know. Like that, I really like that.

Keith Kaufman:

So well, what do you? So this? This is interesting. I just carry a. So my son, when he was a bit younger, he played in a basketball league and the policy of that particular basketball league was that each game somebody would get like the MVP right, and it wasn't necessarily who scored the most points, but it was who had the best attitude, who tried the hardest right, like it was more effort based, but the rule was everyone had to win that at some point in the season. So it wasn't a pure meritocracy, it wasn't like you know, my son could win it every week and I was the coach. Now I probably wouldn't do that. That's not, you know, probably not cool, but you had to make sure that everybody got it. But you gave it individually. So how do how do you react to that, given what, what you just said?

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, I mean, I do feel like. I mean I do think that there is something, there can be something quite special as a kid feeling elevated or honored or recognized in a way, you know. And so like there's something that's kind of appealing to me, especially thinking about it as a dad like, what, what, what I would want for my own kid, like, yeah, that you get a week where, like, you get to be recognized, you know, like, and yet I feel the this other tension of like you know, like the counterfactual, but like, but what if a kid really like, what if the kid on the team really doesn't try? You know who really you know, like and they get it.

Tim Pineau:

It's like. It's like who doesn't quote unquote deserve it, and then I'm like judging that whole concept of deserving, you know, but it's like, oh, that is like really deeply ingrained in there.

Keith Kaufman:

How? So? Like what? What is it that that you're that's so deep?

Tim Pineau:

That you know, and maybe this is actually related to a comment about I think it was pro number four that it encourages future support participation.

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, Ooh, good memory.

Tim Pineau:

Impressive. Yeah, Thank you. My wife would not agree. That's a good number Like why are we just assuming that future participation is a good thing? You? Know, we're just and part of that is probably because yeah, well, because we do we do assume participation in some sort of team is good or maybe, even more specifically, participation in physical activity and sport is good. Why is that good? Because it teaches things like commitment and diligence and wanting to, wanting to win right, with just such a big part of our culture, you know.

Keith Kaufman:

And socialization right, yes, and things like that.

Tim Pineau:

There's lots of things we could focus on. You know, versus, but do get focused on. And again, I'm just noticing, you know, or let's just experiencing, that like, oh, yep, like there is still this idea of of, yeah, deservingness, Like it's not just about effort, but your effort has to produce a certain result. I mean, even when I was saying before, but the superlatives they were still formed like best free free throw. Like maybe you're not the best overall player, but this is still what you're best at. You know, like your effort still Manifests in this way that we are judging as good you know, and like obviously, like I spent a lot of time thinking about this, not participation trophies, but it's like how, like, how do we balance this idea that in sport, as in many things in life, you know like there are, there are things that we're labeling as good and bad. You know, there are outcomes that we want.

Tim Pineau:

You know, if you're a track runner, like it's good to be faster, Like that you know, but not inherently good, right, I think they're, and I think this is an important difference Like you can recognize the conditions or you can recognize the parameters. Maybe is a better word that like given the parameters of how track operates. Being faster is better than being slower, Right, but that's not the same as saying is inherently good to always be faster, because of course I can imagine, you know, eating ice cream, right, eating ice cream more slowly because you're more time to save her, Maybe that's the, maybe that's another thing you want to do is not good to do that quickly. And then, you know, the danger becomes when we, when we assume that these parameters are telling us about something that is inherently good, not just quote, unquote good in these conditions, and then when we attach that to our self esteem or self worth that like oh, I am good because I run faster, I am not good because I don't run fast.

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, well, let me. Let me read you a quote that I came across now. This this was a couple years ago at the time, so the gentleman who said this is named Mark Hyman. He used to work at GW, so in our backyard in in sports management, and so he might still be there now. I just I don't know what his current affiliation is, but he said a quote when you view sports as just a healthy part of growing up, there's nothing really threatening about a six year old getting a trophy, and I don't know that that it's interesting. What you were just saying kind of reminds me of that quote.

Tim Pineau:

Taylor Taylor just just signed in.

Keith Kaufman:

Ah, okay, all right. So Taylor's going to jump in our round table. Awesome, oh, excellent, excellent. So while he's a, I'll let you digest that, while while Taylor is signing on here. Well, taylor, welcome, welcome.

Keith Kaufman:

We were glad to have you, were glad that you could. You could jump in. We prepared the audience that you might be joining us a little bit late. So this, this is good. We value your points of view on this and so, just real quick, I will just orient you that I was kind of framing this conversation that, at least for what I've seen, participation trophies go all the way back to the early 20th century. So this is an idea that's been around for a while but really kind of exploded as a controversy more in the 90s. And from everything that I read, kind of just you can distill the pros and cons, both sides of the argument, down to about I got six bullet points for each. So what I did was I went through and read the pros excuse me, so far and I'm giving Tim a chance to react to it. So that's that's. That's what you've missed so far.

Taylor Brown:

Thanks for bringing me up to speed. I too did some research on participation trophies, pros and cons, so I've definitely probably clean myself with some of the pros, one of which is participation. I'm guessing might be in there. Well, do you want me?

Keith Kaufman:

at the risk of boring our viewers, I'll take just an extra two seconds and tell you the list I have, and maybe you can add anything that's on your list that I didn't include so very quickly. The list that I gave Tim is to boost self esteem, enhance a sense of belonging or feeling of appreciation, rewarding effort over outcome, encouraging future sport involvement, which I think is your participation point, reinforcing a sense of fun while providing space to fail. And lastly, which Tim probably accurately pointed out is not necessarily a pro as much as an absence of a con, is that kids are smart enough to know the difference between a participation trophy and a winning trophy, and so a lot of this debate is for not because they know the difference anyway. So that's what I came up with, anything that you, that you would add to our process.

Taylor Brown:

Um, I think that that last one is a one that I hadn't thought of before, and I think I did. I did see that in the research that I found as well of. Like the kids aren't putting the participation trophies on the mantle and saying you know, look at me, I'm so good because I got this trophy. You know, I think it's it's more of a memento of something that they have done and just a remembrance of a time in their sporting lives. Now I think the argument could be made, especially for some of the critics of participation trophies, that the damage is being done earlier in athletes careers, meaning that when they're really young and they're getting these participation trophies, when these kind of foundational beliefs about life are being formed, they might not necessarily know the difference between a participation and a trophy, Though, of course, you could also make the argument that they might not know at that time the the value of of a trophy that you only get when you win. They might just see a trophy and say, oh cool, look at this little thing I have, whether it's a winning trophy or participation trophy. Yeah, those are some of my thoughts about about that, but I will say, coming into this discussion, I having one participant, one having received participation.

Taylor Brown:

I do remember I got to the end of like a Pee Wee baseball season and we got a trophy and I did feel like, oh cool, I got this trophy. But then there there was a sense of it was cool for a little bit and then I realized that I didn't really win and I was like why am I getting this? So there, there, there was some conflicting thoughts about it and I don't think I ever really talked to my coach or my parents about it. It was just kind of like, oh, I just got this thing, Though I do remember we also we used to go to this pool when I was growing up and we got these ribbons for the they had like the pool Olympics Day and I think there were ribbons all the way out to like eighth or ninth place.

Keith Kaufman:

And I had that too.

Taylor Brown:

Right, like you would get, you'd be wearing your eighth place ribbon. You're like, wait, there was eight people in this race, or seven. I love to get a feel about this, yeah, but yeah, so a lot, a lot of experience for myself with participation trophies and I think I would be on the more of the critic side, honestly, in this discussion than on the I will hang on where don't jump the gun, we're doing this.

Keith Kaufman:

It's a slow review.

Taylor Brown:

That was my, that was my introduction for you to go to the or cons.

Keith Kaufman:

Well, just real quick, because right before you joined us I read to him a quote which I think kind of resonated with something he had just said. Do you remember what you said at this point, or are we so far off topic from where we were that I?

Tim Pineau:

kind of remember what I said. Okay, and bring me back.

Keith Kaufman:

All right, so I will read the quote one more time. So this, this Taylor, was from a gentleman named Mark Hyman who, at least as of a couple years ago, worked at GW University and the Department of Sports Management. So don't know what his current affiliation is, but at the time he made this quote that this is affiliation, and I quote when you view sports is just a healthy part of growing up. There's really nothing threatening about a six year old getting a trophy.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, yeah, I mean because the, the potential threat, you know like, I think you know this is part of what you were getting at or the what critics would get at is like that, yeah, you know you're, you're teaching a kid not necessarily to value winning or wanting to be the best. You know that like, yeah, sure, effort matters, but your effort has to manifest in a very specific, tangible outcome the most points, the fastest time, right. So like, and this whole idea of of you know wanting to training, you know like, especially towards kind of an elite level of performance requiring us to push past our boundaries to be able to tolerate discomfort. And why would we tolerate discomfort if not for, you know, some reward? You know, I think part of our argument is like or come from the internal, not from the from the external. Well, maybe not our argument.

Keith Kaufman:

It can come from both, but we're saying maybe that there's a richer fuel source, I think coming from from mindfulness right, as opposed to a trophy, which is externally derived.

Taylor Brown:

Can you read that quote one more time?

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, absolutely. When you view sports as just a healthy part of growing up, there's nothing really threatening about a six year old getting a trophy. And the reason why I read this quote right after what Tim had said is he was making the point that you know, there is something about this, this outcome, orientation, this sort of need to win that gets applied to kids. That is part of I'm putting words in your mouth here a little bit, tim, but like this broken system, right. So if we had a more well adjusted system, if this was just a normal part of our development to participate in activities like this, there would really be no harm. That. That part of the harm here quote unquote as we get into the cons might be what, what is actually happening with any youth sport and the messages that get sent and kind of how the game is set up. If that, if that makes sense.

Taylor Brown:

Yeah, that makes sense, and the reason I want you to read that again is because when you read it the first time, I I was really focusing on the word threatening and you brought up the word harm here and really at the kind of zooming out on on like this issue as a whole and why people I feel like it's so, you know, bent out of shape about this and they they're like at each other's throats over over this, over this question is really because there is a sense of of people's understanding of the the right way to raise athletes is being threatened by this question of participation, trophies and the right way to not just athletes but the right way to the right way to raise people. Why do we feel like we have to defend our personal beliefs and make other people have those beliefs as well?

Taylor Brown:

That's a rich topic, right, right, like why, why do? Why do we feel like we're defending? You have to, you know, defend truth essentially, or like your version of truth. So, oh, I look at like somebody who's really getting very, you know, intense about the topic of participation trophies and it's like, well, you can raise your kid like this and if you happen to be on a team that has participation trophies, you can help them to understand the what that means for them, and then this other person can raise their kids like this, and if you're, if you're having to get a participation trophy, it's your job as a parent to then talk to your kid about what that means to them. And so it's. It's yeah, when you just said that, that quote threatening. It's like there are adults that are really like their at their core beliefs of of winning and losing or or or how they're raising their kid, are really being threatened, and I think that's why people get so hot about these topics. Yeah.

Taylor Brown:

That's interesting, but that's my reaction to that quote.

Keith Kaufman:

Well and to your point, I think in some of the research I was doing for this, for this episode, there is a lot of crossover in the debate between the trophies and great inflation in school, and and I think that's beyond the boundaries of what we'll talk about today. But I think you're right that this, this phenomenon, whether it's parental overidentification, whether it's confirmation bias, that needs to be right, right, like to kind of reaffirm the way that we see things. I mean, I think there's so many different explanations, but I think part of why I wanted to share the quote and go back to kind of what Tim had been saying before, I think part of it and part of what you're getting at, taylor, is coming from how we approach achievement, and I think that's what's so different about bringing something like mindfulness, because and Tim, you were kind of nuancing this earlier I think sometimes people understand mindfulness as woo, woo or kumbaya, we're all just sitting around holding hands and doesn't matter. You know, I don't have to care about goals, I don't care about outcomes, and that's not true. Right, we talk about mindfulness so much as as choice and essentially not becoming overly attached or beholden to outcome as the only truth.

Keith Kaufman:

Right, and, and I think that is such an important piece of this is that we, like an MSPE, a big part of what we try to teach people is what are our underlying attachments? Where are these judgments of good or bad coming from? Because I think that's what you were talking about before, tim right is just how how much these definitions are good or bad kind of get generalized and maybe there's a lot more space for nuance than we, than we typically see within sports, and so I think in the work that we do, we're trying to bring more space, not that someone has to be right or wrong, not that trophies are inherently good or bad. I think we would probably all agree though I don't mean to put words in your mouth that that maybe where the good or bad comes in or the danger comes in here is where we're all or nothing in one of these camps, something is all good or all bad. Certainly, to your point, taylor, that does not make for a constructive society, a constructive dialogue around a pretty complex issue.

Tim Pineau:

Yeah, I mean, especially when you have, like the, you could take the same, the same.

Tim Pineau:

We're trying to say like the same stimulus, right, and have just seemingly diametrically opposed interpretations of it.

Tim Pineau:

You know, like someone could say you know, maybe we'll get to this with the cons, but like there's a con of you know, or like one of the reasons why you wouldn't want to give a participation trophy is because it devalues winning Right and this very specific kind of granular way of like no, no, no, no, you just showed up so you get this trophy, but no, you should only get the quote unquote reward, right, if you actually earn it. There's a whole other like, however, rely on that concept of earning, whereas someone else could say like, oh, no, what's bad about participation trophies is that it overemphasizes the concept of winning right, that, oh, you would only even just show up because you get some sort of reward, and why wouldn't you want to just do it, just because you enjoy it right? And like it's the same, like, oh, this is a con of participation trophies, but from completely different vantage points, meaning completely different things. And yeah, to think that you know I am right and you are wrong is just so yeah, creates so much divisiveness, creates so much conflict.

Keith Kaufman:

Do you think and maybe and we'll get to the cons in just one sec, because I'd like us to focus there some too but this sixth pro that I listed that we were kind of talking about a little bit that kids are smart enough to know the difference? I also wonder how much of this debate is really about adult yelling at each other, and one of the things that I referenced, like. I taught sports psychology for over a decade and I'm embarrassed to say I referenced the study every time I taught it, and I cannot, for the life of me right now, remember the university it came out of. I'm sorry. I will look it up Any of my former students who are listening.

Keith Kaufman:

I apologize for dropping the ball here, but there is an oft referenced reputable study that was done surveying thousands of kids in the United States about why they participate in youth sport, and winning in trophies was not even close to the top reason. The top reasons were fun, learning, spending time with friends. That's what kids care about. So I think it is important context here too. How much of this debate is really about parents, is really about coaches, is really about adults and not at all about what kids actually think, Although, Taylor, you did give that example from your childhood about feeling a little bit conflicted. I don't know if that was something you thought at the time or if that's something that's occurred to you as you've gotten a bit older.

Taylor Brown:

I just remember. The only thing I guess I remember is I was joking with one of my teammates about I think we had not been that good that year. I don't think we won a lot of games, and I remember one of my teammates joking with me like hey, we get trophies anyway, we suck but we still get trophies.

Taylor Brown:

It was just like, it was just a funny moment and I think in the moment I did realize like why am I getting this? But I like to have a shiny little trophy. Did it change the way you felt about yourself? I don't know, I never played baseball again.

Keith Kaufman:

Oh wow. So there's a wow. I mean actually, you know it's a lot I did play baseball.

Taylor Brown:

I played it a little bit in middle school, but I certainly didn't play it in high school, and I think that was for a lot of other reasons. That's a whole another conversation. It was a bit of a nightmare coach T-ball nightmare coach situation, but yeah, I think it's interesting. I didn't get a lot of participation trophies as a kid. I certainly knew what they were, but I don't think I was ever a really good loser. Though and I know this is a part of this conversation is that you reward kids all the time and then they're just. They don't have the resilience, and this may be going into your cons.

Keith Kaufman:

All right, do you?

Taylor Brown:

want me to roll off my list? Yeah, I don't want to do your thunder.

Keith Kaufman:

No, well, you already have a little bit, because you listed a couple of them. But that's great. It just means we're on the same page, so all right so my six cons, my six cons, all right, which.

Keith Kaufman:

The first one was already mentioned. So undermining competition, undermining the value of winning Right. Number two diminishing the sense of accomplishment that someone might feel. Number three is entitlement. I actually saw this written in one article as breeding narcissism. That felt a little bit strong to me. That felt really strong to me, so I felt like entitlement was probably a more appropriate word. I think also, taylor, that might kind of get at what you were saying too about not learning how to lose. Number four is also sacrificing resilience so that also relates to what you were just saying but just not really ever learning that it can be a struggle to have success.

Keith Kaufman:

Fifth was de-incentivizing hard work or learning from mistakes. Interestingly, with this one, I saw Carol Dweck's work cited as both pros and cons with the growth mindset. I saw people arguing that a participation trophy could create a fixed mindset and I saw people arguing that giving a participation I'm sorry, yes, giving a participant who can promote a fixed mindset, and not giving a participation trophy wait, now I'm tying myself up in knots Basically that whether you give it or not, there can be implications for mindset, and I thought that was interesting that they kind of applied her work in both directions kind of says something about this debate. And then, lastly, the sixth one I came up with is what Tim mentioned earlier about motivation is that it undermines intrinsic motivation, and that is, at least to me, that is a very compelling one, because we do know from the literature that extrinsic motivation essentially eats intrinsic motivation.

Keith Kaufman:

And, referencing the study that I mentioned before, that if you take most six, seven, eight, nine year olds and survey why are they playing sports, they tend to give those intrinsic reasons that I listed before. If you talk to most 12, 13, 14, 15 year olds, it sounds very different and there is this sort of crossover effect that I have found, at least anecdotally in my work, that once kids start quote unquote getting serious about winning in competition, they really do lose sight of the intrinsic reasons why they got involved in sport to begin with. So again, I'll just sort of summarize this real quick. So again, undermining competition, diminishing a sense of accomplishment, breeding entitlement, harming resilience, de-incentivizing work or hard work or learning from mistakes, and playing sports for the wrong reasons, taylor, anything you would add to that list.

Taylor Brown:

Yeah, I don't think so. I'm just trying to mentally go through it and think about, like okay, I got participation trophies. So I'm trying to think about, yeah, like I said, I felt like sometimes I wasn't so resilient in sports. I definitely wasn't a great loser. I would get really angry and get very upset if I lost. I was the kid who kind of the coach had to say go shake hands because I was kind of fuming in the corner and didn't want to go shake hands. So like, yes, I feel like maybe my sportsmanship was affected, even though I feel like as I matured I did better. But it is interesting, the not good at losing part, I think, was a huge motivator that made me want to be really good. Even in the college I don't think I was that good at losing, but I trained very, very hard so I never had to lose, and I know this is definitely not mindful.

Keith Kaufman:

But it's a thing you hear it all the time. Right, it's more painful to lose than it is joyful to win.

Taylor Brown:

essentially, yeah, yeah, and I definitely hung on to that feeling of losing and certainly participation training didn't affect my competitiveness. I was incredibly competitive. I mean I knew that the eighth place person got a ribbon, but like that didn't mean that I didn't try, because I knew that the first place ribbon was much better than the eighth place ribbon and so I was like definitely going to still try to get the first place ribbon. It was like, oh, I got a ribbon. I don't care about competition anymore. No, that one's blue, that one is like green, like who cares about the green ribbon, I want the blue ribbon.

Keith Kaufman:

Just saying so maybe that Are you arguing yourself into this is one of the pro arguments that you know the difference, that kids know the difference between.

Taylor Brown:

I know, yeah, Maybe I'm man. Maybe I'm learning something about myself here.

Keith Kaufman:

Well.

Keith Kaufman:

I can you know as you're telling your participation trophy story. I have gotten exactly one participation trophy in my life. My son, who is his almost 11, I think, on his shelf has like six, which is which is maybe something about the generational gap here, I don't know. But it's interesting because so I was a pretty successful student athlete in high school. My team and me individually won a number of championships. I played tennis and so I got. I got some victory type trophies, medals in that.

Keith Kaufman:

But throughout childhood, before I got to high school, I was not very fortunate to be on a lot of winning teams. I was on a lot of losing teams and I remember one year my coaches and I think my dad was one of the assistant coaches this year, so I don't know if I have to credit him or if he was against this. I'll have to ask him at some point. I played for a soccer team and they gave us like just trophies at the end of the year, kind of a participation trophy thing. I still have it. It's like my one, like kid trophy. I still have it in my office. That just sits there.

Keith Kaufman:

I don't look at it and think, yeah, I earned that. You know, I don't look at it in the same way. But you know, my, my plaques and my medals for tennis are sitting in a box somewhere, whereas the soccer trophy and maybe it has something more to do with just appreciating my dad was the coach and having some sentiment. I'm willing to realize there's more complexity here, but it is interesting. I certainly did not have the experience you had, taylor, where I was like, oh my gosh, this legitimizes my season, I'm a winner, and this is why I want to do it next season. It really is like oh cool trophy, I've always wanted one of these neat.

Taylor Brown:

Yeah, do you have it in your office where you are? I do.

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, I could get up and show it to you on the screen if you want to see it. I absolutely do.

Taylor Brown:

Oh man, I'm just thinking that would be like a great thumbnail for this episode. Like, oh my gosh.

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, it's like a little mini, like almost World Cup trophy, right.

Taylor Brown:

So it looks like I did something great.

Keith Kaufman:

Right.

Tim Pineau:

Well, it's like kind of related to what we were talking about before. You know, like that there's not clearly not a right or wrong. It's not like, yeah, they are good or they are bad. So much of it depends on context, and I think, taylor, you were making this point. Like, do parents actually contextualize it for their kids, right? It's not like the act of getting the trophy or the fact of getting the trophy has some definitive impact on the kid. It's how they understand it, right, and you can sit down as a as their parent.

Tim Pineau:

I'm imagining like the circle of parents actually sit down and explain to their kid this is why you got it, this is, I think about it and this is how I think it fits in my broader philosophy about what it means to be a good person or what it means to be successful, right, like that circle is probably way smaller than the circle of parents who have strong opinions about these participation trophies, but like I think, whether you get it or you don't get it, you know the actual trophy. Like the parent could still sit down and instill whatever values they think are important about what it means to try hard and what it means to be humble and what it means to, yeah, like, be a good loser. Like, be a good loser my son is a terrible loser. Because I don't think it's. Like. You know, clearly, no one factor, no one instance of getting a participation trophy is going to define a kid's athletic career. That's not believable to me, right, but we could look at that and say, like, therefore, it doesn't matter. But I don't think that's true either, right, because I think our perspectives, our values, are made up of all of these tiny little experiences. Hopefully, a lot of them we have. We have people around us supporting us when we're kids. We don't have the brain development to like fully contextualize them as someone to help us do that.

Tim Pineau:

Right, but like that, like, yeah, that participation trophy, plus you know the way the seating chart is done in school and the way that your Sunday school teacher gives out lollipops for who answers the questions? Right, like all of these things come together to teach a kid, teach a human being. Right, like, why is winning important? Is winning important? Is that the lesson that I want to be carrying around with me? And it's something I really want to try hard to to make sure that I'm the best. Like, like, the little things do matter. This is a bit unrelated to participation trophies, but just the other day we were talking about I was busy with my parents and my wife and my son were there and like the Barbie movie came up and I was like oh, yeah, I would arrive where they want to see that movie, you know, and my son was like boys don't play with Barbie.

Tim Pineau:

And I was like where did that come from? We have been so intentional about about trying to be inclusive and open and still in him that there isn't, there's no such thing as gender toys, like that's made up, you know, and even like we even did not, did not find out his sex with Barbie, and one of the reasons was because we didn't want people buying gendered clothes, like we wanted to start from day one of like not setting up, setting a tone. And yet somehow this collection of experiences he has had in the world have taught him already he just turned five boys don't play with Barbies. And even there my wife, my dad, my mom, myself, we were like boys can play with Barbies. My dad was like I used to play with Barbies all the time with your nieces.

Tim Pineau:

Like boys play with Barbies like it's like you know, like everyone sending the same message, and he was, he was resolute. No boys do not play with Barbies, you know. So the collection of these little experiences really do matter.

Taylor Brown:

I was actually thinking a very similar thing, tim, just in my recollections, like you know, I might have gotten participation trophies that won baseball season, but then, like the next soccer season it was I was going to tournaments and you were not. You know, double elimination tournament and it's like if you're knocked out you don't get a trophy, you go home, you know so it's. And then, yeah, I mean, there's like tons of different experiences, even, you know, just thinking about the you know I keep talking about this but like the ribbons that I got at my you know, you're talking about context like at my summer pool, where I wasn't even on a team, it was just me, you know, and all the other kids that went to the pool. But like that arena that I was competing in was like, at the time, more important than the baseball arena that I was competing in. It was like if I can beat my friends at, you know, my recreational summer pool and get a blue ribbon, like that is the most important thing to me right now. And so the fact that there were like participation trophy ribbons there probably had more to do with my like development of like winning and you know conceptions of winning and losing, than like the participation trophy. I got at my baseball because I didn't really care about that and the coach was crazy and I was like I don't know why I'm doing this. So, yeah, you know tons of different contexts.

Taylor Brown:

And now if a kid was growing up in a vacuum, complete vacuum, and everything that they were doing in sports and in life was like they got rewarded without putting any effort in, and you could probably make an argument that some kids do live this life where they just get everything they want, they win everything they do, they get the best this, the best that, and it's like what does that create right For perceptions of winning and losing? They never lose if they never lost, right Like that, I think you could say that would have a huge effect. And then what might actually be more common is kids grew up in these hyper competitive environments where, like, winning and losing are, you know, very I don't know known and they're very known that you can. You know losing is a part of life and you're not gonna win all the time and you know you're not always gonna get the trophy, you know. And the last thought I had was you know, and, keith, you might know this because I know you're a runner, Tim.

Taylor Brown:

I don't know if you run competitively or anything like that, but, keith, I know I've heard you talk about it running a marathon you get a medal when you're done. For a lot of marathons you get a participatory medal. I know I did for triathlons and stuff as an adult and it's like as an adult, I don't look at that and go like, yeah, I won, I just kept them as like a. This is a moment in time in my life and I would hang it up and eventually and I stopped hanging up the medals, but it was just kind of like, yeah, I remember when I trained for 12 weeks for that thing and that's my reminder of it, taylor what a shock you to know that I, on my wall, right by where my participation trophy is, I have all my medals.

Keith Kaufman:

For my participation in races, because to me to your point I mean it signifies the accomplishment of.

Keith Kaufman:

it might be a little bit apples and oranges because I think the very act of finishing a marathon is such a big deal, is such an achievement in and of itself, Separate from winning. There's only such a small, small, small, small subset of the population who could actually win an event like that, I don't know. So I don't know if that requires a more nuanced discussion, but yeah, I think that is true. We don't, I don't know about. I mean, I've been around running for a long time. I've never heard people push back on giving race medals or equating that with participation trophies. I've had people not care about it and be like, yeah, whatever, I don't care about my medal, but certainly not with the kind of heat that we see in youth sports. And that's what I wanted to sort of maybe wrap up here. I know we have to. We're running short on time.

Keith Kaufman:

I had raised this in the very beginning, I think, Taylor, before you had jumped on that.

Keith Kaufman:

It almost seems hard to separate this issue from the theme of parental over-involvement, and I mentioned like this really became a heated debate in the 90s, where we also saw some shifts and how parenting tended to be done, and so I guess, just if you have any final thoughts on this cause, I do think a lot of this, like kids are resilient this is at least where I'm coming down on it that kids are resilient, that kids do know the difference, that you can kind of have it both ways, that you can feel good about having participated in something and also know that you didn't win the championship, and I think a lot of like the threat right To go back to what you were sort of picking up on before Taylor. I think that comes from parental over-involvement. I mean, I see that all the time with the work that I do in my practice. I see that I've been a youth coach for years and in terms of some of the encounters I've had with parents, it feels like that theme is intricately linked here to me.

Taylor Brown:

Yeah, yeah, I guess I would agree with that, having not had the experience that you've had as a youth coach. What is the critical point in development for a young person where they are forming these beliefs about this stuff? Is there a critical point where you're seeing that? And because I was thinking adults, obviously we're talking about the race, medals and stuff, and we've already formed all of our beliefs, I mean about this stuff, and obviously I think they can change and shift and they're dynamic, but generally the foundational things are there from our sports experiences and I think maybe you know, even in college, you know you're pretty solidified, I'd say. But like when? When are those beliefs happening? When are they starting, or does it, or is it just from when you're born to where you are now?

Keith Kaufman:

Well, I think you can answer that question in a couple of different ways. I think I think to Tim's point about his son being five years old. I think the socialization process happens very early on and as much as parents we want to shape what our kids value and what they believe, very quickly that gets out of our hands right, and so I think that the influencing piece starts very early. Anecdotally, what I have observed in having been in private clinical sports psychology practice for almost two decades now, that there seems to me to be a sweet spot in early adolescence, like somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13, where something shifts. There's a bit of a rooting out process, there's a bit of a crossroad where maybe a kid's going to exit sport and go do something else do music, do art, do something else.

Keith Kaufman:

I think that's the time where, like what I say air quotes, like kids get serious, and I think when they get serious that's code for competitive and I think that shifts everything. And I think part of where it can become problematic is if the kid doesn't actually want to continue in the sport but the parent makes them continue, or part of the worth that the kid is deriving for themselves, or in the relationship with the parent is compelling them to continue. So those seeds were planted, but I think by the time they get to early adolescence it can start to create some identity problems. So that is. There's probably some really good research out there on that that can pinpoint it a little bit more specifically. I would say the way I, at least anecdotally, think about it is around the age of 12, is. It feels like that's a sweet spot where things start to shift.

Taylor Brown:

So then around 12, would that be then like when you would want to, where you would want to be really as a parent you'd want to be really intentional about. You know how is my kid, you know how was my kid perceiving all of this with with reward and motivation and stuff like that?

Keith Kaufman:

Well, this might feel a little bit peripheral, but I think it's. It's the over emphasis on winning, it's. It's where I mean the way I explain it to a lot of my younger clients is the things that make us great when we're younger are those intrinsic motivational factors, are the it's fun. I like learning, I like feeling good about this, I like how my body feels when it's moving right. All of these intrinsically rewarding experiences makes us practice, makes us want to continue to come back over and over and over again. And I think, as we get into like late elementary school, middle school kinds of years where it becomes more about making the team traveling, you know the kinds of things that start to separate out who's talented, who's not, you lose that, and I think some of the things that make young athletes so great, they forget about it, they abandon it, and that's where you see this epidemic of anxiety and so so maybe part of what we can say to sort of wrap this up is you know, one way that mindfulness can help or one way that I find myself using mindfulness in my work and I guess we can debate whether participation trophies help or hurt in this regard is in reminding these slightly older kids, that there's more than one, that that's your and you guys said a couple of things, both of you that that I had this thought and I am. It's just occurring to me. I want to make sure I don't lose it Like that.

Keith Kaufman:

I'm not defined by this. I'm not a loser because I lost or because I didn't make the team Right or because I didn't win the championship Right. I always think I know it's, I know it's satire, I love Talladega nights. I quoted all the time right. But if you're not first or last Right, like this sort of like you know the bumper stickers right, like second place is the first loser. I think that mindset is so unbelievably toxic. And and to me, I think this whole debate about participation trophies is very much in meshed in all of this I throw way too much. I know you're both looking at me like I don't. I have a lot of feelings about this, obviously, but that that's sort of my hot take, I guess.

Tim Pineau:

No, I think that how else the kids learn this stuff right? We teach it to them. You know, often unknowingly and yeah, with, with, I think, very little insight into the unintended negative consequences. You know the additional suffering it causes right over identify with outcome right.

Keith Kaufman:

Could we argue that that suffering piece right that's that's part of the impetus for participation trophies is to try to protect against that. And we're saying I think it kind of cuts both ways right that in some ways it can protect against oh here's a winner and here's a loser that that type of suffering. But in other ways it creates different kinds of suffering because you never really developed maybe that resilience to be able to cope with something like losing. So maybe not shocking that on a mindfulness podcast and I want to speak for the three of us but we're coming down to hey, it depends, it kind of cuts both ways. You know there's no right or wrong or good or bad. How much more mindful can you get?

Taylor Brown:

that that's yeah, that feels right to me, I think also, it just is very clear to me that like it's not you know it's not all or nothing Right like it's not good, it's not bad and it's also you don't have to choose one or the other. Like kids like Tim to Tim's point, are going to expose to a bunch of uncontrollable variables and go. You can't just not go ever watch sports movies. Like you're going to see this stuff and it's going to be into the, into the psyche, and they're going to talk to their friends. You can't control what they say to their friends or their friends say to them.

Taylor Brown:

You know they're going to play games at recess or unless I guess you homeschool your kid his or her entire life and then they never have recess with with their friends. They're going to play kickball. You know they're going to know what winning and losing is and yeah, like there's, there's, you know, and then you're going to get in the real world and you're going to get a job, or you're not going to get a job, right, like that's like the trophy, you got hired and so, yeah, it's a life isn't fair. Yeah, life isn't fair.

Taylor Brown:

I see a fairness back to the back to. The threat is is people are so worried about their kids not not being, not realizing that life isn't fair?

Keith Kaufman:

Yeah, but I think that I know I know we have to leave this here, but this, this was super fun. Taylor, I'm so glad you were able to get here in time and join us a bit and you did great to sort of pick it up. That wasn't easy, you jumped right in. So thank you for what you do, offered and just take a moment also. Oh sorry, go ahead.

Taylor Brown:

I was just saying sorry I was late. I we're buying a house. It's it's very a lot of stuff going on.

Keith Kaufman:

Yes, yeah, well, we can, we can emphasize absolutely a lot out of your talk about being out of control, right, a lot of things not happening on your timeline, so. So just to kind of wrap up here, take a moment and thank our wonderful colleague, dr Carol glass, for all of her support of podcast. If you want to connect with us the mindful sport performance podcast we have a social media presence. We are on Instagram at mindful underscore sport underscore podcast. We also have our free YouTube channel where we post all of our exercises that begin our guest joint X episodes. So if you are looking for a wonderful free library of meditation and exercises, highly suggest you check that out. You can find us under our podcast at YouTube. You can also connect with us, the MSP Institute, at wwwmindfulsportperformanceorg, and we are on Facebook and on Instagram through our Institute.

Keith Kaufman:

Me, dr Keith Kaufman, I am on Instagram and on Twitter. My handle is at mindful sport doc and of course, we still have our book out there. If you are interested in learning more about our MSP, our mindfulness in sport work, mindful sport performance enhancement mental training for athletes and coaches. We very much welcome your reviews on Amazon or elsewhere to our book and we also very much welcome your reviews to our podcast, especially if you're a regular listener. We would love your feedback. And lastly, we do have a new feature this year that if you are interested and willing to help support the funding of our podcast, you are able to make donations through our podcast feed site on Buzzsprout. And you know we joke all the time. We do this because it's fun and we love it, but but anything we can do to try to try to hop, try to offset some of our operating expenses is is fantastic. So anything you're willing to do we very much appreciate. So thank you to everybody who listens. Thank you Tim, thank you Taylor.

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Dr. Keith Kaufman

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Dr. Tim Pineau

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