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Ask a Child Psychologist offers insights and advice on navigating youth emotional and mental well–being. It is not a substitute for professional psychological or medical advice.
Across Canada, school gymnasiums will soon fill with applause as teachers hand out year-end awards. Students will walk across the stage to pick up their plaque or medal for the highest marks, best athletic achievement, or excellence in the arts. Proud parents will take photos. Teachers will cheer.
And quietly, some children will sit in the audience wondering why their name was never called.
For many families, awards ceremonies are joyful celebrations. Recognition matters. Children benefit from feeling seen for their contributions and accomplishments. A meaningful acknowledgment from a teacher or coach can strengthen confidence and reinforce positive habits.
But awards season also raises an important question: What do all these trophies and medals really achieve?
Psychologists and educators have debated the role of rewards and recognition for decades. Research suggests that external rewards, including prizes, certificates, and praise, can increase engagement and help initiate positive behaviour in the short term. However, their long-term impact depends heavily on how they are used and what children believe the reward represents.
Recent research suggests the issue is more nuanced than simply asking whether rewards are “good” or “bad.” In some situations, external rewards may help spark the learning process itself. Researchers describe this as a “motivation transformation” – where external incentive gradually becomes internal drive. A child may initially practise piano for gold star stickers but eventually continue because they genuinely enjoy music and experience pride in their growing skill.
At the same time, rewards alone rarely sustain deep, long-term motivation. Some research suggests that awards can unintentionally increase social comparison or shift students’ focus away from learning itself.
Children are sensitive to social comparison
In my clinical work with children and adolescents, I’ve seen how emotionally loaded awards ceremonies can become. Many children are not expecting to win everything, but they are often hoping to feel noticed, valued, or included in some way.
When the same group of students repeatedly receives public recognition, other children can internalize painful conclusions about themselves: “Maybe I’m not smart enough.” “Maybe I don’t matter here.” I’ve sat with many children after awards ceremonies who were far less upset about not receiving a certificate than they were about what they believed the absence of recognition meant about them as a person.
One challenge is that traditional school awards often recognize a relatively narrow range of strengths. Academic excellence, athletic success and highly visible leadership are important achievements and deserve to be celebrated. But children contribute to school communities in many other, subtler ways that often go unnoticed.
Failing is good for kids, if only parents knew how to let them
For example, sometimes the student showing the greatest perseverance or working the hardest is not the one called up on stage to receive an award, but the child managing anxiety, dyslexia, or family stress while simply trying to make it through the school day feeling okay about themselves.
Increasingly, schools are broadening how they think about recognition by celebrating progress, resilience, creativity, citizenship, collaboration and character alongside traditional achievement awards. This reflects an important understanding from developmental psychology: children thrive when they feel valued not only for performance, but also for effort, belonging, and personal growth.
Parents often ask me how to help children navigate the emotional intensity of awards season. Here are five useful approaches.
Broaden the definition of success
Children need repeated reminders that success is not limited to grades, trophies, or other forms of public recognition. Many of the qualities that predict long-term well-being and healthy relationships (kindness, perseverance, creativity, humour, integrity, empathy, curiosity, and resilience) are not always visible from a stage. Try saying, “What I notice most is how hard you worked, how kind you were to others, and how you kept going even when things were difficult.”
Avoid comparison
Children are naturally aware of who receives awards. Parents can help by avoiding excessive focus on rankings, winners, or comparisons with peers or siblings. Avoid questions such as, “Who won most valuable player this year?” as this can unintentionally reinforce the idea that worth is measured through external achievement.
Recognize effort and growth
Some of the most important work children do is invisible to others. A child who learned to manage anxiety, improved confidence, persisted through academic struggles, or simply kept trying during a difficult year deserves recognition too. Let them know you see their effort and growth by saying something like, “What impressed me most was not just the improvement itself, but that you kept going even when the extra tutoring and studying felt difficult.”
Normalize disappointment
Feeling left out hurts. Parents do not need to immediately dismiss those feelings with statements like, “Awards don’t matter anyway.” Children benefit more from empathy and validation: “I can understand why that felt disappointing.” When adults acknowledge difficult emotions without overreacting, children learn that disappointment is survivable and does not define their value.
Help children find belonging
Many children discover confidence and connection outside traditional school recognition systems, through sports, hobbies, volunteering, or relationships with trusted mentors. Not every child shines in the same environment, and parents can help children understand that belonging is often found by discovering the spaces where they feel most authentically themselves.
Long after children forget who received the highest average or the citizenship trophy, they often remember something else entirely: whether the important adults in their lives noticed their effort, kindness, courage, persistence, and growth.
Often, the moments children remember most are not public ceremonies, but quiet moments of feeling truly seen.
Dr. Jillian Roberts is a practising registered psychologist in Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. She is also a research professor of educational psychology at the University of Victoria. She specializes in child and adolescent development, family therapy and inclusive education.
Want to ask a child psychologist?
If you have questions about navigating the complexities of child and youth emotional and mental well-being, we want to hear from you. Are you trying to figure out how to support your child’s mental health? Grappling with special education needs? Helping your adolescent or teen cope with issues related to social media, relationships or anxiety? Please keep your questions general in nature and submit them for Dr. Roberts to consider addressing in future columns. This does not replace professional medical advice.