Most of the time kids just get "season" markers. Like, "Thanks for playing on our soccer team 2017" which I don't see as that harmful. They're trophies sometimes, simple white plastic base with some gold circle or whatever (at least the few times I've seen it) - it's a nice way to close out the season and have something on the shelf to remember, not a huge deal. I think kids notice when the trophy says "First Place." I know I knew the difference.

Yep. I've never actually seen a "14th place" ribbon, because I think even optimists know it would just be read as an insult. All I actually got were 'participation' awards, which were basically a trinket to remember the team or event by.

There was a "protect kids self-esteem" bit, but that was entirely at the top end - there was no trophy saying "First Place". I certainly never saw trophies 'celebrating' losses.

Do people actually give out 14th place ribbons? I've only ever seen "everyone gets a participation ribbon", which stops specifying places past 3 or 5.

More broadly, though, I definitely remember ignoring all of this stuff as a kid. We weren't allowed to keep score during soccer games because it "wasn't about winners and losers". (One wonders why we were playing a competitive sport, then.) Not just "score wasn't kept" but "get in trouble if you're heard talking about score".

So... we had to keep score when coaches and refs weren't in earshot. That was the entirety of the result. If anything, it sort of felt like something we did to protect the fragile adults! After all, the winners still made fun of the losers every game, nothing had changed, but now the adults didn't have to see it happen.

It was always sort of funny to me to have our ten game soccer season of "we don't keep score" followed by the top performers advancing to playoffs, including a championship.

"We don't keep score, there's no winners and losers, but if we win this game we make the postseason."

Yeah, I don't see what's wrong with a souvenir to remember the season by. That's not coddling kids, it's just giving them a trinket that will hopefully bring back nice memories. Amateur adult teams do the same thing in the form of t-shirts etc.

I agree that this has been blown out of proportion, as csydas said in the parent comment. Criticising participation trophies is mostly a way for certain people to signal that they don't buy in to "all that millennial snowflake bullshit". How much harm can it really do?

Having said all that, having to play soccer while secretly keeping score does sound crazy!

I received a 16th place ribbon in a cross country race in middle school. I thought it was silly but my Dad kept it for a long time. I don't think everyone got a ribbon, though. Maybe the top 20.

I would imagine getting a 14th place ribbon is akin to having to wear a dunce cap.

Of course it depends on how many people are in the competition. It's not the absolute placement that matters, it's the percentile. Coming in 14th in a 20-kid elementary school class is poor (though someone has to). Coming in 14th place in the Tour de France is damn good. You might not win a medal but you'll probably get sponsorships from cycling equipment companies.

To their eyes is bragging rights that you were able to get last. It wasn't long before medals for places below 1,2 & 3 were removed.

Kids are pretty smart (way smarter than some people/parents think they are) and they know how far they can go, and what they can get away with.

By contrast, my kids (all <8) are highly motivated to go to swim class on cold days by the ribbons given out—every participant, every class.

I wonder how much of this 'debate' is actually just people talking about different age groups?

A participation ribbon might well have motivated me at age 6, and frankly I doubt both the morality and common sense of anyone saying a six year old is too happy at a swim class. Keeping kids involved at that age seems like the biggest goal.

On the other hand, I have annoyed memories of getting participation ribbons at 15 for doing terribly in races. They felt downright insulting, because I knew exactly how I'd done and I was basically getting a ribbon for taking a bus to the meet.

A shocking number of educational issues seem to boil down to "6 year olds are not 15 year olds". That, and "offering things is better than enforcing them" - participation ribbons are way better than banning score-keeping, which I also got to see.

Oh this is a BRILLIANT point! We almost never breakdown our perspectives based on age, much less take a moment to reflect on which of our ages is being represented by a thought.

I think the natural bias to put discrete values on things existing on a spectrum is where is all stems from. "We want to keep things simple, so here's this recipe for self-esteem" as opposed to "here's an age-based breakdown of ways to build self-esteem". Even then, the "enlightened" example is missing loads of other conditions, like if the person suffered emotional abuse or has automatic negative thoughts.

Also, banning score-keeping is the naive approach. I think an interesting one would be to add a game score & encourage both teams to collaborate to increase it. I don't know how it'd effect things, but it'd be fun to find out!

Now that you mention it, I do weekly timed runs (http://www.parkrun.org.uk/), and I definitely treasure my "ribbon" (the email I receive confirming my time and position).

I time the runs myself on my phone so the email has little real purpose, but for some reason it's very satisfying to know that my efforts have been logged in a database.

I'm unlikely to ever hit the top 20, so this is very much a participation trophy. Maybe they can be motivating after all?

Participation isn't the same as placement & external motivators can be really useful in establishing habits. The question is will you stop running if the ribbons stop flowing?

This is an external reward to set the stage for internally valuing their fitness & learning how to use their body. Nothing wrong with it, as long as there's a plan for internalization. Ideally, they'll be taught those lessons & won't need the ribbons to get them out on the cold days 10 years from now.

(Take with a grain of salt. My only experiences with raising children involve raising myself & my parents over the past 1.5 years.)

Maybe they just compete with their peers on number of ribbons - which changes it from "participation ribbon" to an actual prize.

The best part is when kids compete for that last place ribbon. Makes for some ridiculous races where everyone is barely running.

This is a thing with professional athletes as well.

See for example the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanterne_rouge .