Why trophies are STUPID: 10 Better Ways to a Healthy Self Esteem

This is the top of my son's bookcase. With so many awards & trophies, you'd think he is a pillar of athletic prowess and skill. To be fair, he is a very good athlete, but he "earned" most of them by the sheer fact that mom signed him up for a sport and she paid the registration fee on time.

Usually at the end of each season, someone comes up and asks for even more money to buy trophies.  I counted 25 trophies - averaging somewhere between $8-15 a piece.  That means, sitting up on the bookshelf there is somewhere between $200-$375 worth of dust collectors. 

 Money well-spent? I'm not so sure.

I was reading an article in Psychology Today by Matthew D. Lieberman, Ph. D., that discusses the "Everyone Gets a Trophy" movement.  He traces the movement back to the 80's where studies found that higher self-esteem lead to higher grades, lower teen pregnancy and decreased drug use.  Parents, teachers, and government officials started propagating the idea that children should be praised and rewarded as much as possible to raise self-esteems. Accomplishment was not important and merit based rewards were even discouraged because they might damage tender self-esteems.

I was planning on running a marathon, but applying this logic, I don't need to actually train or run the marathon to get that sense of accomplishment.  I need just pay a registration fee and buy a "26.2" sticker for my car. 

Lieberman made an astute analogy between a child's self esteem and car's gas tank.  A child fuels his self esteem by being loved and working hard. Trying to artificially raise self esteem is as effective as breaking open your dashboard and manually moving the needle to reveal a full tank of gas. 

Falsely praising a kid will only make him feel like a fraud. We all want our kids to have healthy self-esteems, but they get this by working hard and accomplishing stuff. To me it seems:

Earning Stuff = Higher Self Esteem

Simply Getting Stuff = More Stuff (plus the added bonus of a sense of entitlement!)

A kid doesn't need to be the valedictorian or a star athlete to have healthy self esteem. I set 40 goals to achieve by my 40th birthday and even the silly goals added all sorts of fuel to my tank.  Instead of feeling old, frumpy, and unaccomplished, those goals helped me feel downright fabulous about turning 40.  

I don't have any fancy degrees in child psychology, but I have been a member of the human race for the past 40 year and here's what I've learned:

1.Our job as parents is to love them unconditionally (and make sure they know it). 

2. Teachers, coaches, scout and school leaders are there to assist us in raising our kids-not the other way around. We should not blame them for our kid's problems. They need to hear the phrase "How can I help" a lot more and "Why aren't you..." a lot less. Step up or shut up.

3. We need to make them do hard stuff and allow them to fail. 

4. We need to teach them to accept personal responsibility for the failure, to stop blaming others and encourage them to try and try again until they succeed. 

5. We need to be their cheerleaders when they are putting in their best effort and not be afraid to call them on it when they are not. (We will not be telling them anything they don't already know.)  Studies show that kids that believe they are merely "smart" tend to give up easier when faced with difficult tasks.  Kids that are praised for working hard, believe that they have the necessary skills to complete difficult tasks and are more successful.

6.  We need to provide opportunities that they can serve others.  It will help them to temporarily forget themselves and doing good always makes you feel good.

7.  We need to teach them the difference between right and wrong.  Some will argue that morale absolutes don't exist, but doing bad stuff simply makes you feel bad about yourself.

8. Expect greatness from your kids.  Guess what the number one factor  in a child's academic success is? Parental Expectations. Don't believe me, read all about it here.

9. Be specific when your praise your child.  

10. We need to encourage kids to try lots of new things, until they find those areas that they are passionate about and where they will find true success, not just another dust collector.



One day I will be brave enough to print out a copy of this post and hand it to the next person collecting money for trophies, but until then I guess I will just rant quietly here on my blog.