I see it several times a week in my private practice.
Kids who don’t know how to handle disappointment much less know what it actually feels like to experience disappointment. I don’t know about you but my parents allowed me to experience disappointment and never sugar coated it when I did.
Many kids (and adults) will mask disappointment with anger. When they actually feel “let down” many kids identify this feeling as anger and have learned that crying, throwing a fit, complaining, or blaming others teaches their parents to concentrate on making them happy, and wind-up jumping hoops to do so.
For the love of God, please allow your children to experience emotional pain and disappointment so they don’t find themselves in a therapist office as an adult, playing the victim card.
The “everybody is a winner” mentality isn’t always best for children’s emotional and psychological development. Each child receiving a trophy or reward when they know they did not do their best (and they do know this) only feeds into the “poor me” victim mentality that proves to destroy them as adults.