ticipation trophies dulls their competitive edge, and may prove to be a inconvenience in life. On the other side, parents who support participation trophies claim that it gives them self-esteem, and self-belief, and that both are useful traits in that journey we call Life. Millennials are often considered as underachievers, and participation trophies may have played a role in that. Will participation trophies inexorably make our children narcissistic, self-entitled mooches, or should there be more communication between parent and child explaining the value and purpose of those trophies?

Participation Trophies are Bad
Participation trophies have become a serious subject because it involves our children. Some parents disprove of it religiously, and it is understandable. Participation trophies have made our children soft, at their age, they absorb everything, their brain is like a sponge, and when they receive a trophy for no reason, or reason they cannot understand, it will register in their brain as entitlement.

It's in the Numbers
In a Times article titled Millennials: The Me Me Me Generation by Joel Stein, he gives a couple of interesting stats that he attributes to the fact that "Millennials got so many participation trophies growing up" He states "40% of millennials believed they should be promoted every two years, regardless of performances. 58% scored higher on a narcissism scale in 2009 than in 1982"(Stein, 2013, Para. 2). He later mentions a YouTube video that went viral by an English teacher named David McCullough Jr., who spoke at a high school graduation, with his main theme around the idea "Climb the mountain so you can see the world, not so the world can see you."(Stein, ...