What
@mtnskater said. There are a lot of sports open to girls now than before -- sports that are less expensive, more accessible, school-sponsored, and with scholarships attached. Around here lacrosse, field hockey and cheer are huge, as are soccer and softball. The hours for practice fit parents' schedules better and team sports are always going to be less expensive than the roughly $30-50,000 per year it takes to keep an elite skater on the ice.
As for trophies, sure, give every kid a trophy. Who cares. You can buy them online for $5 and have "Olympic Champ" engraved on it. I received participation trophies way back in the 70s for dance and my dad received one back in the 50s for baseball. I was under no illusion that I was going to the Kirov and my dad didn't show up uninvited to Mets training camp. For some kids, just stepping on to the field and trying to look athletic is a huge accomplishment -- maybe more of an accomplishment that the kid who hits all the home runs because the kid who "just participated" didn't have anyone at home to play catch with him, or his mom is ill, or his dad is working three jobs, or he's being bullied at school and told by other kids to stay off the team....I don't get this whole "kids gotta learn about real life as soon as possible so let's do it by sucking all the joy out of their childhood and in the process make them hate sports so they sit inside and play video games instead" attitude.
Believe me, kids get that life is rough and unfair. Youth suicide is at its highest rate ever, the number two killer of boys between the ages of 14-25, and increasing in young girls. That's not all mental illness or bullying; that's the freaking hard-knock life of uber-competitiveness in schools, starting in middle school, hearing that your whole entire life is hinging on testing and grades, starting with 7th grade pre-Algebra, if not your first grade reading scores.
Youth sports are more competitive than ever and parents and other adults are doing their darndest to make young athletes' lives a misery, from forcing them to specialize early in a sport, thereby subjecting them to overuse injuries, burnout and just ending up hating the sport they once loved.
If you gave every kid on my son's hockey team a trophy that said "You're the Awesome-ist," they would still know who scored the most goals, who is the best team player, who is the kid who gets the most penalities, who gives their all at practice, who always loses his equipment, etc. And those trophies could all be 10 feet tall, and believe me, no one is under the false impression that they are going to be called up by the NHL. And if you gave none of them a trophy and stopped keeping scores at games, they would still know what's what. (Honestly, I think it's mostly the parents who want to keep score at games -- I've heard more than one kids say they'd love to play games with no parents watching because of the grief they get before, during and after the games.)
Kids are smart. They know when an 11th place finish at a large qualifying competition is a bigger personal "win" than a gold medal at a small, club competition. They know when a clean lutz at a competition that doesn't have video playback is a "gimme" they might not get at a competition where the tech panel is watching slow motion replay.
I have three kids. Here's my deal.
- Unless you're out running or riding your bike every day, you have to do "something active" in an organized way.
- "Something active" can be dance, martial arts, team sports, individual sports, a class at the local gym
- If you join a team, you need to show up for practice and participate and do what the coach is asking you to do
- For team sports, you can only quit after the season is over, unless there is an abusive situation going on
- Once I sign a check -- for a competition or coaching session or clinic -- you will participate or pay me back
- You can't quit on a "bad note" e.g. if you are frustrated by a skill that your coach thinks you can learn, come up with a goal-setting plan to work the problem. This is a life skill and one of the most important reasons you are playing sports, not trying to get to the Olympics or World Cup or NHL or whatever.
- If you switch sports, you need to give the new sport 3-6 months before switching again.
- Collect all the participation trophies and medals you want. I trust you to figure out which one have meaning for you.
Anything above recreational competitive sports needs to be kid-driven. When it comes to sports, kids should not be forced, ultimately, to do things they hate. Being an elite skater means a huge sacrifice of a child's time, body and potentially their education and emotional and social life. If a kid is not pushing to be at the elite level, a parent should not be pushing, and nor should anyone else. It won't work. If anything, sensible coaches and parents will be holding uber-driven kids back so they don't compete while injured or over-practice or not give up all their time to one activity.
When kids are young in a sport, parents help kids organize and learn responsibility and teach them how to work through challenges, but at some point, the kid needs to internalize that motivation if they want to go above and beyond. If they don't, oh well. It's OK. It may not be good for U.S. Figure Skating -- maybe -- but it will be good for individual human beings.
, but I never encountered this "everybody is a winner" mentality (at least promoted on such a mass level) until the Obama presidency of the last 8 years. 
when I see numbers and variables. Working harder at math only made me hate it more. I did advanced calculus in college, and only because I needed it for my biology major (which I no longer use, at all). I don't remember any of it from school, and on the whole, I'm glad for it. 
). It's not about culture. It does definitely have a relationship with coaching.
