Paying For Grades - Why/why not?

[midjd]

DH was offered pay/toys for grades because he was so unmotivated. He told me the problem was that being lazy rewards you every day while pay for grades rewards you twice a year.

LOL! I'd be hard-pressed to argue with that logic. And I know I'm gonna get some smartass kid with all kinds of arguments for everything...

[Deleted]

We expect our kids to do well at school, but, we pay for report cards. Here there are three possible "mentions" per report card, three times a year. Top mention (highest honors) gets 50e, middle mention (high honors) gets 30e, lowest mention (honors) gets 10e. No mention gets 0.

Three of our four kids got good grades just because. The payment for the "mention" on their report card was just a "bonus".

DD is LD and NOT academic, and I knew that on some level she was being penalized by this system. But, I didn't want to disrupt the system because it worked well with her three brothers. So at the end of every school year, I'd treat her to something (useful) she wanted. One year it was a new backpack, another year it was a fancy handbag. Because school was/is always much harder for DD than for her siblings.

After a year in mainstream HS DD ended up transferring to a vocational HS (with lower academic standards), so it became easier to apply the same rules to her.

I always got good grades because that's how I am built, but my dad used to treat me to something for every good report card. I remember him taking me to a music store and letting me pick out my first LP (Let it Be).

IMO the parents who pay for grades have kids who would have basically gotten those grades anyway. MAYBE they worked a little bit harder, but paying for grades is never going to transform a bad student into a stellar student. Again, IMO. To me it's just a little "bonus" for a job well done.

[Deleted]

Message deleted by debthaven2.

[Sum Dum Gai]

We don't pay for grades per se, but when report cards come out the kids get to pick any restaurant in town and we take them to dinner if they have straight A's. Well, I usually take the older one for sushi, and Loop takes the younger one to Mexican, since they can never agree on a restaurant.

[Deleted]

Dark I think it's cute that you let them both choose.

Just curious, why not take turns with both kids, instead of you usually going with the older one, and Loop usually going with the younger one? (Maybe you prefer sushi and Loop prefers Mexican lol.)

[Sum Dum Gai]

(Maybe you prefer sushi and Loop prefers Mexican lol.)

Bingo. I might look forward to the report card sushi more than my daughter does.

Loop doesn't eat any fish/seafood so it's a rare treat in our house.

[Deleted]

I figured that was probably the reason!

[movingforward]

I didn't get paid for grades and no one I was friends with got paid for grades. You were placed in one of 4 levels at my HS school. There was basic, average, advanced and honors. Honestly, everyone I hung out with did well because they wanted to at least be in the advanced classes. People at my school seemed to fear being labeled as "stupid" or "remedial." I don't actually remember anyone even referring to people in the lower levels by those terms and they never should but this fear seemed to be as good a motivator as anything else.

[kittensaver]

No payment for grades here, but there WAS a family reward system - - as in, if you brought home good grades, you were allowed some relative freedoms (things like extra TV or video game time, permission to spend time at the mall or the movies with friends, trips to amusement parks) etc. The better the grades, the more liberal the perks. The poorer your grades were, the fewer freedoms you had. Early on we "got" the "responsible behavior" connection between grade achievement and control of one's non-school time. In high school, all A's meant mom & dad covered the gas AND the insurance for use of the car (the three of us teenagers shared one car). B's - you got your insurance covered, but had to shell out of your pocket for gas. C's and below: nothing was paid for, effectively eliminating your the use of the car (C's and D's would also bench you from extracurricular activities and sports until your grades improved). Two of the three of us got (used) cars as a graduation gift - - we didn't know it was going to happen, we were never bribed with the promise of a car, but it certainly was awesome to feel like you'd really earned mom & dad's trust and respect because you'd learned to balance your life and achieve in places where it mattered. (I know, so old fashioned . . . ) But it worked for us. Two of the three of us also used this system for our kids and got great results.

[TheOtherMe]

I never had kids so I don't know what I would have done.

Dad did pay us for grades above a C, all the way through college. In the dark ages, college grades were sent to parents so they knew what I got. I had one C in my life and it was in college. I was mortified by it. It ruined by 4.0 in college. I did not need the motivation of money. I demanded of myself to get straight A's.

My sister, on the other hand, was not as motivated as me and has told me as an adult the money did motivate her--to try for B's. She had to follow my footsteps and just figured she could never do as well as I did, so she didn't even try. She settled for B's and got her money.

Grandpa paid all four of her kids for grades also.

[alabamagal]

We do not pay for grades. We expect good grades. All 3 kids got mostly all A's all through high school, a few B's. I don't think there was ever a C through high school. We would sometimes "treat" the kids to dnners based on their school performance.

All 3 kids have basically full tuition scholarships in college (actually the 2 in GA were reduced to 90% due to state budget). They have to keep a 3.0 gpa. If they don't, they have to pay their tuition. So far DD finished college had a few grade issues but managed to keep 3.0 gpa, DS finished 2 years well above 3.0 and third starts in fall.

So I am not paying for good grades, but the kids will certainly be punished (in the wallet) if they fail to keep good grades in college.

[Deleted]

I didn't pay for grades. I couldn't have afforded it. My daughter was the kind of student that outlined the book in college before the course started. My son was a National Merit who made two B's in his life (one in high school last semester of German II and one in college in an art appreciation course that he took because his gf/now wife took and he had to have a fine arts elective.) Dark would appreciate my son's philosophy: if you can make an A without ever studying, why would you study to make a higher A? There was always so much more stuff he wanted to do, some of it academic like reading WWII histories.

The kids were smart, and we knew they were smart. So what would we have been paying for? My son complained, but that's because he saw it as easy money.

What we did do was "celebrate" report cards. The kids knew they were supposed to make A's because that was what they capable of. They did. We let them pick the restaurant, which was usually Red Lobster. (I don't eat seafood, but we weren't celebrating my grades.)

[giramomma]

I wasn't paid for grades. I was simply expected to get good grades since I was capable of it. I also wasn't allowed any extra privileges because I was a "good" kid. Again, it was just expected that I'd be "good."

We don't pay for grades. I don't buy the whole "in the work world, if you do well, you get bonuses, raises, etc." I haven't gotten a raise since 2008. But, I am a gov't employee. I also think I remember that not everyone in the private sector got raises and bonuses, either, over the past 4 years.

That said, I do splurge on my kids every once in a while. I'm sending my oldest to (an expensive for us) sports camp for a week. Not because he's good at the sport, but because he's going to enjoy the experience. He knows he's going because he's a "good" kid.

[Deleted]

I don't have kids, but I was one once.

In our family, we weren't paid for grades, but there would periodically be a special dinner or other occasion where our efforts were acknowledged.

I can't even remember if that was the reason for the celebration, or if it was just a regularly scheduled dinner with the grandparents when they would make a point to toast our good grades?

I don't know. It was nice though.

I was a smart kid^TM that liked school. If you have one of those, they are probably somewhat self motivated, so you don't need to pay for grades. I suspect it would have been nice, though.

If you have a smart kid^TM that doesn't like school that much, I wonder if this system could backfire? You don't want the kid taking an easy elective for a sure A if they could get a B in an AP course that gives them a leg up in college for the sake of $20.

[simser]

I don't have kids but I wasn't paid for grades. It was expected, and I was an only child so no sibling pressure to deal with.

Maybe if I was motivated that way I would have gotten straight A's. I usually got mostly A's with 1-3 B's. Straight B's meant remedial studying with Dad. I didn't get a C until PChem so by then I was totally on my own.

I did have a friend whose parents expected straight A's from her (she could deliver them to... it wasn't abstract). They tied paying college into her grades. I might do that when I have kids. Her parents would pay the semester for straight A's or else she had to pay. I think she negotiated 1 B a semester because we went to a really difficult school.

[Firebird]

I was a smart kidTM that liked school. If you have one of those, they are probably somewhat self motivated, so you don't need to pay for grades. I suspect it would have been nice, though.

Eh, not necessarily. I didn't really get A's for the sake of getting A's - I did it for the negative reinforcement (not getting good grades meant dealing with Dad, and it was so not worth the ten hour lecture on how I COULD be getting A's if I would try harder).