The trophies above belong to Lovebug. They cover swimming, soccer and baseball. Lovebug has never won a championship in any of those sports. In baseball one year, I don't even think they even kept score. I can hear all the anti-trophy people bristling from here. But the thing is, Lovebug knows he didn't win a championship in any of the sports. He knows he wasn't the best on his soccer team. He knows he didn't win too many races in swimming. He thinks he got those trophies because he showed up at the practices and the games and tried his best every damn time.
And I refuse to see a problem with that. Showing up and working hard is going to get him way farther in life than thinking only the kids lucky enough to be on the winning team (because at the rec level in kindergarten, first and second grade, there's a lot of luck involved) get trophies. I believe that trophies should reward the qualities we want to instill in our kids - hard work, perseverance, teamwork, handling defeat and even winning gracefully.
That also explains why I don't think every kid should get a trophy.
Last summer, Lovebug and Ironflower joined our local pool's swim team. It's not competitive in the way that the year-round swim teams are, but meets are held in other towns and practices are every day (not that you had to go to them every day).
Lovebug fell in love with it, and Ironflower fell in love with the fact that a lot of her friends were on the team. We went to most practices and we went to all the meets. The meets, by the way, involved ribbons for first, second, third and participation. I have no idea where the participation ribbons are, but each kid has their (admittedly few) place ribbons hanging in his/her room. Kids know when they haven't done well and it's insulting to any kid over 5 to think otherwise.
Anyway, at the end of the season there was a potluck dinner and trophies were awarded. For everyone who had worked hard all season, etc., etc. I was cool with this, until a couple of trophies were presented to kids I did not recognize. By blatantly eavesdropping, I was able to learn that the kids had never gone to practice and had only gone to one meet. I was appalled.
Those kids got trophies because their parents had paid for them to be on the team. They did not work hard, show up for practice or even win a bunch of races.
Trophies should be for everyone. Except the kids who don't work for them.