And the award goes to… everybody on Facebook this week, or so it seems.
My News Feed has been flooded with over-the-moon happy, smiling pictures of pre-teens and gap-toothed tiny people, all proud as punch in their school uniforms, clutching their awards and end of term certificates.
All week there has been an influx of parents posting heart-explode moments about their little ones, who are by all accounts growing up way too fast and receiving Honours, Commendations, School Captaincies, Dux, Top of The Class, Best In Show, Best On Ground, Most Likely to Win More Awards and I think it’s cool.
I hardly have any mementos from my school days, no happy snap of when I came third (yes third, not first) in the local talent show at Warriewood Square or when I played a joey in the Christmas pantomime at Warringah Mall. There might be a photo of my Year 12 formal floating about, but whatever was going on with my hair I’d be happy to forget.
It’s one way technology is being used for good this week instead of evil. (Until we realise all the photos of our youth have been used by the Shadow Government for facial recognition in some evil plot to control us in the future. Insert scary laugh.)
Seriously, though, it’s a great way to remember these little wins in your little person’s life.
I thought I would write a letter to the kids who didn’t get an achievement award, or top their class, or get elected School Captain, because they need our encouragement too. Maybe you can read this to them and hopefully see their face light up because we all deserve that moment.
Top Comments
I agree with TwinMamaManly. Maz you have just said that "the best person isn't always the person that gets the prize and that's a bit unfair". I'm really angry about that sentence. The best person DOES get the prize. What's not fair is this 'everyone gets a trophy" attitude! If a child attends school EVERY day, excells in all the assessments in class, puts in 100% effort on homework and nails it AND is top of the class academically then that child dam well deserves that ACADEMIC AWARD! Don't take away that child's moment in the spotlight, they worked for it. I know parents that don't send their kids to school on awards day because their child doesn't get one of the awards, however if that child attended school every day and excelled in the classroom then maybe they would. Don't tell kids "your day will come" because they need to work their little behinds off for that day to come!
And also the idea that hard work gets rewarded, in the workplace hard work often does not even get acknowledged, let alone recognised and rewarded. In fact, you may even get bosses who take the credit for themselves! Working hard is simply a part of life if you want to get anywhere - whether you are a surgeon, labourer or SAHM. I think it is far more important to teach kids resilience in order to cope with real life, not this rubbish that they are all entitled to everything just by showing up or because "if you can dream it, you can do it" nonsense.
This is all very nice but I think we are misleading our children by encouraging them to them to believe they will most assuredly get "their turn" in the sun and they will have their moment of glory, even that they can always expect hard work to be recognised by the powers that be. It's not exactly preparing them for the real world.
Agreed.
This sort of attitude also devalues those kids that work hard to win those awards.
Yep. Some people are average or below average. That is real. But everybody has something that they love to do, so encourage them to continue to enjoy that, and not to be afraid to try new things too.