You might remember the participation ribbon you received in second grade for participating in track and field day or the one you received in fourth grade for participating in the spelling bee. You didn’t think anything of it and might have thrown it away, simple as that. Little did you know that one day your participation ribbon would become a news story about the entitlement of a generation.
If you type participation ribbons into Google and happen to get past the first page of ads, you’ll see articles with the titles “Participation Ribbons Send a Dangerous Message” and “The Problem With Participation Ribbons.”
How can such a small piece of ribbon cause any problems?
The general consensus around campus is, they don’t.
People had a hard time remembering when or where they received their participation ribbons and did not recall any sense of true excitement or pride in receiving them.
“I did receive a trophy for my softball team participating in a tournament. I never set it out with my others, as it didn’t mean as much to me, and quite honestly, I was a little embarrassed when someone made a big deal about it and I only got it because I showed up,” Diane Shanafelt stated.
Others groggily recalled receiving them here or there for track and field events or for sporting events they participated in.
If nobody cared about receiving them, then why all of the backlash? Fellow student, Kelsey Diggins, joked and said it’s because everybody needs something to complain about. The answer is slightly deeper.
It’s partially due to the fact that different generations are entitled to different things as psychologist Jessica Pleuss explained. Older generations might have felt entitled to working at the same job until retirement or receiving pensions. Younger generations are more motivated by material goods.
“I’m not convinced that today’s emerging adults are any more entitled than other generations, I think that they’re just differently entitled,” Pleuss said.
Shanafelt worked with kids for 34 years as an elementary educator in the Sioux City Community School District and still does not believe she’s seen a general trend towards kids becoming more entitled overall.
Even so, there is an art to giving out participation ribbons effectively from a psychological standpoint.
Participation ribbons are meant to encourage kids to actively participate in activities where they can grow and get better. However, once participation ribbons are introduced into a competitive setting, they are no longer effective. Giving out participation ribbons in tournaments, where the goal is to reward those that are better than others, does not make sense.
Madison Pierson, a senior, elaborated on her thoughts as well.“I think participation ribbons are more like for the sake of going, ‘Yay, congratulations you completed a thing’ and instilling the ideas of seeing a project through to the end, rather than feeding kids feelings of self entitlement.”
As she further explained, “Getting a participation ribbons in my track and field events in third through sixth grade did not make me feel entitled to varsity on my track team.”
Don’t let other generations shame you because of the participation ribbon you won in the second grade, there’s more to you than your “entitlement” to a ribbon.
Jessica Pleuss: pleussj@morningside.edu
Diane Shanafelt: shanafeltr@morningside.edu
Kelsey Diggins: kad011@morningside.edu
Madison Pierson: mnp002@morningside.edu
There isn’t too much I would change here. I think that it may be better to end with a quote or have a little more to say after the quote. It feels weird to read the quote, and then have the story abruptly end. Also, there are times when you lean both ways on the subject, which isn’t bad, but then you take a clear stance at the end, which I found odd.