I disagree with the baby boomer generation on some things. I don’t really see the harm in giving out «participation trophies» for sports and other activities. As someone who received my fair share of participation trophies, let me drop a truth bomb on y’all: We knew they did not mean anything. Some kids actually got trophies for various achievements (MVP springs to mind), but if you only got a single measly medal at the end of the season for no particular reason, you knew that you brought nothing but mediocrity to your organization. 

However, I do think there’s some harm to kids being labeled «special» when they’re not that special. Sure, a child might be advanced out of a class of 20 kids, but that does not always translate to the real world and can create some wrongfully inflated egos in the long run. One former gifted kid recently shared her feelings towards back-to-school season, and Twitter ripped her a new one.