Participation trophies have had both a positive and negative effect on children. People believe that participation trophies make children grow up in an entitled generation, expecting awards for every little amount of work they put into anything they do. While others believe it teaches kids lessons, for example, lessons that will help them in the future including the value of commitment, hard work, and skills needed to achieve their goals regardless the outcome. Observations show that parents tend to lean more into one side of the argument, depending on how it affected them or their child. The article by Lisa Heffernan, a TODAY Contributor, was in favor of participation trophies based on how it influenced her hardworking son. The article was effective in providing a strong argument to parents using the emotional support that came from authors and her child's experience. …show more content…
She starts her article by including both sides of the debate, do participation trophies make a child an entitled little piece of turd or does it mold them into an ambitious and hardworking person? Her purpose for this article was to support participation trophies by convincing parents what true influence it has on children, based on her child's life experiences. Parents assume that when they enter their child in a sport, the child will honor the commitment and attend all the games. Therefore, assuming that by registering their child for a sport it would be beneficial to the child and make them more athletic. However, Lisa Heffernan states in her explicit general thesis., “we would like to believe that most coaches and parents value effort and the process of learning a sport, with its rules, skills, and protocols, not simply the game’s outcome. And we would be wrong... participation trophies teach a worthwhile