re: #165 The Ghost of a Flea

Other thing people with the whole “participation trophy” whinge don’t think about: people that organize competitive events want participants to feel valued, because without their efforts there’s no fucking event (and no funding, no community, etc).

It’s a “you put in effort to get here and share something with us, and most people don’t do that” ribbon.

I have found that children do not need to be constantly praised or rewarded for their accomplishments, they just need to be recognized for them. Instead of “What a beautiful picture of a house!” it suffices to say “Wow, look, the house is blue and there is smoke coming from the chimney and an apple tree next to it!”. To a child, those comments are received as praise.

A nice group photo of the team that the child played in would be similar level of recognition and the child could be just as proud of it as if it were a participation trophy.