In our elementary schools and team sports for younger kids there seems to be this foolish desire to make everyone a winner.  But there are winners and losers.  They had assemblies at my kids’ elementary schools, several times a year, in which eventually every kid won an achievement award.  When I coached my young son’s coach-pitch baseball league, I was told at the end of the season to get trophies for everyone, including myself. Instead of enhancing self-esteem, the truth is this just diminishes any one child’s actual accomplishments.