Dealing with team's diamond diva

[Sparky Guy]

I am sorry after the age of 10 IMO there are no need for "participation trophies"

At some point, the lesson has to be learned that hard work is rewarded not "just showing up"

And by the way some of the awards that are given out nowadays at tourney are rediculous to be honest. Local 6th grade football team won their "conference" parents bought them rings. Really????

And the team trophy was bigger than the one given out by the state for the HS state championship.

It's the snowflake syndrome. Everyone is unique. Everyone is special. Nobody should fail. Nobody should feel bad about themselves. If someone/something upsets you we should "fix" it so you're happy. IDK... Guess I'm getting old.

 

[_MIA_]

It's the snowflake syndrome. Everyone is unique. Everyone is special. Nobody should fail. Nobody should feel bad about themselves. If someone/something upsets you we should "fix" it so you're happy. IDK... Guess I'm getting old.

Kids need to learn that the most important thing is to maximize your own potential, whether that be in sports or school. As we all know, as you move up in the ranks of society 99.999% of people will realize that there is always
going to be someone better than you at whatever it is you are trying to do. There is nothing wrong with that and you have to learn to accept it and move on. What you don't want is to have any regrets. If you did the best that YOU
could do than you can hold your head up high.

The everybody gets a trophy thing is bad imo, not necessarily because it rewards subpar performance, but instead because it enforces the notion that the reason
you are playing is to receive something. The satisfaction of knowing that you did the best that YOU can do should be the reward.

 

[BobInMadison]

Sometimes the t-shirt is a good reminder of the hard work.

Two examples: A little over a decade ago, I had problems with heart disease. I worked out a program of medication, diet and exercise to control things. As part of it I set a goal to run in a local 8K (about 5 miles) race that is very popular. My wife bought a Husky puppy for my training partner (he is now 11), and we had a YMCA family membership for the kids' swim lessons, so I could train in the gym and look down on the pool. Many of you would laugh at my time for the race, but it was a lot of work for me. And, my heart disease went away. You may laugh at the t-shirt they gave to everyone in the race, but it meant a lot to me.

Example #2: Back in 2016, my DS, as part of a D-III rowing team, was in boats that qualified for the top races a college student could enter (Nationals and the Collegiate section of the Head of the Charles for anyone who ever rowed). His boats came in 23rd place in both races, but it was a fantastic accomplishment for D-III rowers to compete against the top D-I programs. No medals, but he wears those t-shirts with pride.

Those weren't medals or trophies given to participants, but sometimes just getting to and finishing some events is a really, really big deal. Not as big a deal as winning, but a big deal nonetheless.

 

[CoogansBluff]

It's the snowflake syndrome. Everyone is unique. Everyone is special. Nobody should fail. Nobody should feel bad about themselves. If someone/something upsets you we should "fix" it so you're happy. IDK... Guess I'm getting old.

I question whether this is a realistic description of what it's like to grow up today.

Compared to when we grew up, are youth sports more competitive or less competitive? Are kids today more aware of who wins and loses and who's good and who's not, or less? Rec ball is struggling to survive in many places as more and more kids go into more serious year-round sports at earlier ages than ever. Getting on these travel teams, getting to play the position you want, having a little success, is challenging. There are winners and losers before the first pitch is thrown. I'm not saying this is good or bad, but I wouldn't describe youth sports today as one where everyone is treated as special and that nobody fails. Success and failure is amplified more than it's ever been in youth sports, IMO. Far more than the olden days.

And are kids more likely to have ribbons and trophies for actual achievement today, or when we grew up? My DD has gone through countless awards ceremonies at schools and on sports teams where the 'best' are glorified and most go home empty-handed. Best science student. Best drama student. Most artistic. Most athletic. Best hitter. MVP. Coach's Award. On and on. I don't remember much of that when I was growing up. Seems to me that winners and achievers get more recognition and pats on the back in front of audiences than they ever got. There's abundant opportunity for kids today to see that they suck and are not special.

And do you feel that kids today are more or less likely to be aware of the winners and losers and have's and have-nots than when we grew up? Social media allows kids to see what everybody else has and does with the touch of a finger. When I was growing up, I thought everybody was about the same. Had no idea that some people could afford to go on really nice vacations, or that they were having so much fun with all their friends at parties and doing all kinds of cool stuff that I wasn't doing. Maybe if I had known that I would've worked harder?

I understand that there are lots of kids today who feel entitled, who don't work hard, who act like divas, etc. I get that. But I also see a whole lot of kids who are anxious, depressed and way too hard on themselves because of the constant comparison and competition that seems to far exceed what I recall a generation ago.

I wouldn't describe the world we live in as ''everybody is a winner.'' What I see is ''how do I compare?''

 

[canyonjoe]

I think so many people don't give the kids of today any credit. They aren't stupid, they know which trophies,ribbons,etc mean something. We had a kid who never played TB and we won a silver championship. Her first comments was "so we came in 9th". DD has medals of every kind. She keep the real championship ones out and her first OTF HR ball. Her rec league used to give HR pins if you hit one(no fences). She hit 4 one week but they tried to give her 5. She said the last one was a double and with an error so wouldn't take.

There were entitled players back when I played. If anything some of the kids were worse. Boys have a much easier time jumping on a teammate for making mistakes. We have played TB for 5 years now and I there were maybe 2 or 3 players in all these years that didn't really want to be there and play hard. DD played 2 tournaments with a cast for a broken wrist on her right hand. She didn't do it to win a trophy she liked to compete. She is a lot like me where were are competitive in anything we do. If I'm playing Yahtzee I want to win. But we both play hard and then forget about it. We don't often dwell on a loss.

 

[Elk Grove Hurricane]

Coogans, great posts with a ton of good points. Where I grew up, youth sports sucked. School sports, Little League, Babe Ruth, some youth hockey league, individual skiing, and a youth basketball league geared towards elementary schools were all we had and pretty much everyone made a team if they were willing to try out. There wasn't anything like the competitive teams that my DD's try out for, and you could forget about traveling hundreds of miles to play because parents didn't want to pay those kinds of prices for sports. Nobody trained with private hitting and pitching coaches, you learned from your dad or you learned from watching games on TV. Every sport today is more competitive than it was 20-30 years ago from what I've seen.
As for individual awards celebrating best in this, that or the other thing, your experience is the same as mine. If anything, the "snowflakes" we create seem to be for individual accomplishments in a team setting than for just being on a team.

 

[BobInMadison]

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

 

[_MIA_]

Sometimes every generation thinks they had it worse than the one before.

Sometimes that really is the case. For example, when my in-laws were young, they spent much of their time running away from invading Japanese soldiers. Then their country was taken over by Communists, then they went through some times when they had to hide because of ethnic cleansing, so as not to be killed for their ethnic background. Compared to that, my kids have it easy.

OTOH, we when compare the USA we grew up in with the USA our kids are growing up in, I think our kids have it worse in many ways.
The schools give far more homework.
Far less tolerance if they mess up. What used to be a scolding or paddling is now often suspensions or expulsions.
Far more competition to get into the good colleges.
Colleges are MUCH more expensive. In our day students could pay their way through college with summer and part-time jobs. Now they wind up with crushing debt from student loans.
Far more competition for the best jobs.
Housing costs are more expensive.
And so on.

Oh, and if a kid makes a big mistake, social media can make sure everyone in the world sees it.

I agree that the world is a more complex now then it was for previous generations. However I also think that many (mostly) well-intentioned parents are making it more difficult for their
children to navigate this more complex world by not letting their children deal with their own failures. As an example, I would have never thought about asking my parents to call/contact professors/administrators
to complain about a bad grade when I was in college, nor did I ever hear of/know anybody doing this. It is now a common occurrence at my University. While I understand that some
of this has to do with the exuberant cost of higher ed, leading to the student as a consumer view of higher education, I believe this sort of action stunts a young person's growth as an individual. Parent's
are, in general, much more involved with their child's day to day activities than they were say 20-30 years ago. Much of this is a good thing but there are some circumstances when a parent needs to
let their kid skin their proverbial knee once in a while.

 

[BobInMadison]

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 

[_MIA_]

My parents were educators.
As far as colleges and universities, from the time frame of 1968-1999, at various and sometimes overlapping times I was a professor's kid, an undergraduate student, a grad student, a teaching assistant, an adjunct faculty member, a visiting faculty member, and a tenure-track faculty member.

All I can say is that in all of that time, it was not uncommon for students to complain about their grades, and sometimes the students were right.

In the sciences a test regrade request was quite common. I also remember asking for, and getting, a regrade on a paper in a liberal arts class.

Sometimes the parent has to step in. My parents had to step in sometimes, and my wife and I have as well. Very rarely, and my biggest regret was not escalating one particular incident to the principal a lot earlier. Sometimes we have had to escalate things to the principal. In the cases where we have, we needed to every time.

Kids asking for more points on an exam is a time-honored tradition which probably goes back to Aristotle . I am an Engineering professor and I re-grade all the time. I realize that my exams/grading
aren't/isn't perfect and so I expect students to inquire about their grades. That wasn't my point. My point was with respect to parent involvement in this process. If you say that your parents stepped in for you
regarding grades then I guess your experience back in the day was different then mine.