The Participation Generation

In today’s society has become hyper-sensitive to the feelings of our youth. The idea of fairness in sports has been watered down to the point of allowing anyone who participates in competitive sports to be rewarded. The definition of competition is A contest between 2 or more organisms, animals, individual’s, or groups for territory, location of resources, goods, mates, awards, prestige, recognition of social status or leadership. Competition is the opposite of cooperation. Somehow all of the things that define competition have been manipulated by the term ‘FAIRNESS’. I believe in many cases this has spoiled our youth and their outlook on the way of the world.

Many schools in this great country of ours have adopted a “No Cut” policy on their athletic teams. This means that regardless of skill level you will make the team, as long as you show up and tryout. Many schools also have a policy that states that throughout a game or a competition, which all team members are required to participate. What message does this send? The word that comes to mind when attempting to answer this question is Entitlement. This is a problem because this same entitlement has followed the youth in the classroom and workforce. This has allowed many youth to dismiss their Individual Accountability, Effort, and Work Ethic and replace those things with Excuses, Deception, and Privilege. The fact is that all of these things are learned behaviors and we all know that repetition is the key to learning. You can learn how to work hard at something to be the best at it, the same way you can learn how to cut corner at something. When youth are not held accountable, they learn that accountability is not needed to get what they want. When youth learn the importance of work ethic, they are less likely to rely on deception and privilege to get what they desire. These fundamental principles must be taught in their household before they are inserted into the school system because the present day school system is not reliable enough to ensure the enforcement of these principles in our youth. In fact in many ways the present day schools system has begun to indirectly promote privilege, perpetuate deception, and validate excuses. The responsibility of the parents and loved ones to instilled the principles that promote hard work, dedication, and work ethic as the best way to achieve what you want has become paramount because if left up to our society and the current education system they will learn a much different way to reach what they desire.