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So in wanting to give her a little extra incentive I presented a challenge to her. I told her if she can bring all of her grades (her lowest in her Advanced Social Studies class being an 86) up to 90 and above, then we will pay her $20. I hadn’t given much thought to it. It was just in conversation I was like, hey you know how close you are to having straight A’s this marking period? She kind of blushed and then questioned what her grades were. I told her and saw this look of pride in her eye and wanted to push her that much harder to get what I know she’s capable of so I said I’ll pay you if you get straight A’s.
I used to get a gift at the end of the school year if I maintained good grades for the whole year when I was in school. While I knew that my job was to do my best in school having this extra incentive I think made me work that much harder. After I had done it though, I got to thinking what others might think of me doing this. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to defend my actions and I won’t go back on what I promised her either at this point because that would be breaking a promise which I think could be even worse than offering to pay her for grades. But I do want to explain why I’m doing this and why I would do it again. Because I did ask others and I heard a lot of flat out, “No I would never do that!”
I Understand Everyone’s Best Is Different
While I have offered payment to my oldest for straight A’s in my mind this is more of a challenge. Like lets see if you can go above and beyond and if you do that here’s the reward I will give you. For my other children the challenge might look different and even the reward might look different. Because everyone has their own thing that motivates them. And everyone has their own skill level.
If my oldest had all B’s and they were in the lower 80 range I don’t think I ever would have offered this. She is so very close to getting straight A’s though and knowing her the way I do while she would love to have high honors she also doesn’t have that confidence and drive to really pursue it on her own. Not just for the high honors anyways. When she achieves high honors though I know that will be a huge confidence boost for her, but she hasn’t felt that yet so she doesn’t know what it feels like.
But It’s Her Job To Get Good Grades In School
Yes, that is the ultimate goal of school to do your best. It’s a child’s job. So why wouldn’t we pay for it? When you think about it schools reward our kids. Not monetarily, but they do have checks and balances in place in school. Honors rewards and reward programs where our children are honored for their hard work. And of course the ultimate reward of hard work throughout school is getting into the college of your choice with scholarships.
I have been stressing to my daughter since she started middle school that everything she does from here on out is going to shape her future. She knows this, everyone is telling her this, but at the same time it’s also so far off. It’s hard to look that far in advance. Smaller goals to work towards are better.
I have learned this in dealing with my middle daughter’s education. I can’t look too far ahead for her because it’s too hard to see where she’s going to be. And of course she’s her own goal setter. She tends to set big goals for herself and then sets out to accomplish them. I don’t have to make those goals for her, but I do have to do that for my oldest.
My kids know their job is school and they are always expected to do their very best at their job, but I don’t think we should say they don’t deserve some form of incentive to work a little harder, especially when they have had a difficult year.
And This Has Been A Difficult Year
The fact that my oldest has managed to accomplish even what she has is pretty good given the amount of times her schedule had to change because of how the school messed things up. Yet all year she maintained mostly B’s. Despite having to change classes. It took a huge toll on her and truth be told if it hadn’t worked out I was considering home schooling her. It did work out and better than I could have imagined.
It’s honestly all because she managed to make the best of a rotten situation. So quite frankly for all she has been through if she can pull off straight A’s, then I think she deserves a little extra reward. I have no doubt that she will be bragging to everyone (in particular her sister) that she got straight A’s when she does it and I’m sure that it will be all about how smart she is and not all about the money she receives from it. She really truly will have earned whatever she gets if she gets straight A’s. So I will not apologize for offering her this.
Good Grades = Money
There really is a connection between good grades and money. The better your grades are, the better college you’ll get into, and ideally the better job you’ll get. So I don’t think this is too far of a stretch to go this way. I think so long as we know our child’s ability and we know what incentives will work best for them it isn’t going to ruin them. I’ll have to let you know in a month how well it worked out with my daughter in this case, but so far she is really buckling down and doing her work without me having to tell her to. Part of me is wondering, why didn’t I do this sooner. It might have saved me a lot of fights.
If a situation presents itself with my other children I will not hesitate to do this with them as well. Perhaps the payment will look a little different for them. To an extent on a much smaller scale I have already done it with my middle daughter. She came home with a few good grades and as a reward I allowed her to go to a dance. Although, I did not tell her in advance that she would be allowed to attend this dance if she had good grades. But I might have told her she couldn’t go if she had gotten bad grades. So if I’m going to punish for bad grades, why wouldn’t I reward for good ones? After all, we are told from the beginning in parenting that positive reinforcement is better than negative. If we’re going to start them out rewarding them for something like using the toilet, then mine as well keep the rewards coming for grades.
And on my Facebook wall there was actually a very intriguing suggestion of when her children get bad grades they have to pay her, when they get good grades she pays them. I can’t say I would do it that they had to pay me for every grade less than an A because I know an A really might be asking too much for my kids depending on the class and level at which it’s being taught. But it definitely could be a good motivator.
Will you be paying your children for good grades from now on?