Reward for report cards?

For those with kids; do you reward your kids for good report card grades? If so, how?
My wife and I are discussing this right now. My kids did great and I want to reward them for it. I want to give them $1 per A, half of that goes in the bank, 1/2 they can do with how they see fit. My wife is 100% against this. She says rewarding them with money sends the wrong message, that the reward for hard work is money. I then asked her why I go to work every day.
She wants them to work hard for the personal satisfaction that it brings. That sounds great and all, but I just don't see it working. I'm not asking for you to settle this for us, just looking for other ideas and viewpoints.
It might be relevant to mention that my kids are 6, 8, and 10.

Numerous studies have shown that kids do way better in school with monetary incentives, even at a young age. I'd definitely do it; welcome to life.

If you're a hardass, make them pay you for every D/F

And numerous studies indicate that they will work only for the reward, not for the self-motivation or satisfaction of doing a good job, working hard, or doing what's right.

Having said that, the studies don't matter - the unity and dynamic you have as a family, the communication and relationship you are building with your kids, are FAR more important than the grades. You need to do what ALL of you agree on, and what works for the dynamics of your family. If rewards work and your sweetie is in favour, do it. If your sweetie is not on board, you need to talk it out and find something you can both agree on and consistently employ.

I've been a high school shop teacher for 16 years, and a dad for 7 years. I have lots of theories and philosophies, and few of them are representative of my employer.

Just keep in mind you are setting an expectation going forward. Do it every time or not at all.

I'm of the mind to reward kids for saving money. All too often young folks spend everything they have without saving anything. I think that comes from parents encouraging kids early to save without any real reward for doing so.

My daughter does it for the satisfaction of a job well done, she comes home proud of herself and I don't want to do anything to screw that up! I will toss some stuff her way (it varies) but not on a consistent basis and it's not always the same thing. The idea is for it to be more of a 'cherry on top' deal, not just working to make grades for $.

I don't have anything but my own anecdotal experience as a child. I don't see anything wrong with a gift that correlates with doing well in school, but I know that doing well in school didn't always correlate with good grades. The classes I tried the hardest in and learned the most in were not always the ones I got the best grades in. Quantifying effort is much harder, but when you see your kid bust their butt on a project or studying for something that might be behavior worth rewarding.

In any case, paying your kids to get good grades might pay off in scholarships down the road.

Curmudgeon wrote: My daughter does it for the satisfaction of a job well done, she comes home proud of herself and I don't want to do anything to screw that up! I will toss some stuff her way (it varies) but not on a consistent basis and it's not always the same thing. The idea is for it to be more of a 'cherry on top' deal, not just working to make grades for $.

I think my kids are sort of like your daughter. I mean, the two older kids (3rd and 4th grades) have been on the honor roll since Kindergarten. I'm proud as can be and make sure they know that they too, should be proud of themselves. But when I open a report card and see the kind of grades I didn't care to work for I want to reward them for it.
I thought about doing a special dinner-out for the kids that make the honor roll (see there honey, no $$$, but sorta kinda) but then if one doesn't make it, it's total exclusion. I don't like that at all.
My wife really doesn't like the idea of the monetary reward but she'd never had to work to support herself or others. For that reason, the drive to always improve and succeed isn't there like it is in me. 16 years of marriage and 3 kids on one income tends to drive me.

Never have, see no need for it. Grandma/Grandpa throw them some money for report cards. I don't.

My kids; 21 year old graduating with B.S. Chemistry degree in 3-1/2 years. Looking at Doctorate options.

10 year old 4th grader - all A's. whatever.

I do communicate they need to do a good job for themselves. Their schooling is for them - not me. Them doing well determines their life, not mine.

And I suggest they can always get into selling hoses like Dad, that usually encourages them to do better.

Is the $1 a typo? They can probably find that in the couch cushions. I probably would've performed better in school with a little more incentive. The concept of positive motivation was lost on my dad. There was only punishment for sub-par behavior.

In my opinion rewarding the kids for good grades at report card time isn't worth a hoot for behavior modification. It is too far away from the behavior that got them the grades to have a direct influence. It doesn't sound like you need to modify the behavior anyway so I don't see anything wrong with letting them know they are awesome somehow. At report card time I don't think money is the right reward.

poopshovel wrote: Is the $1 a typo? They can probably find that in the couch cushions. I probably would've performed better in school with a little more incentive. The concept of positive motivation was lost on my dad. There was only punishment for sub-par behavior.

No, the couch cushion change is my allowance haha.
They are young, at this age I think a buck is fine. Plus, I'm thinking a dollar per A on the report card, not per subject. I think my oldest would get like $25 or something.

I have two different problems with this. First of all, the very last thing you want to create here is inter-kid resentment if one or two of them always get As and the other one or two only get As sometimes, having applied basically the same amount of effort. I think I'd be more inclined to apply a specific reward (I like the idea of dinner out) for a specific project or test or something, so that you could salute the effort and not necessarily the mark. You could use varying criteria to spread that reward around so that nobody felt left out.

My other problem is that the older your kids get, the more likely it is that (a) their marks will be at least partly subjective – what IS the real difference between an A- and a B+ in something like English Lit? – and (b) they may find themselves deeply unimpressed with a particular teacher and disinclined to, for example, write the kind of crap essays that that teacher gives As to. In that situation, do you really want to be perceived as being on the teacher's side by holding out $$ in exchange for an A? Personally, I would be more inclined to say, "Yes, Junior, Mr./Ms. X has some peculiar ideas, but it's only for one semester. Write an essay YOU can be proud of, and if s/he gives it a B, too bad for her/him."

FWIW, of my two kids, one didn't care about marks until Grade 12, and one always agonized over not getting As.

You have to play the cards you're dealt. Good luck!

My parents always took my brother and I out for dinner to celebrate our report cards. I think it's important to recognize the achievement and encourage your kids, but I think there's a danger in establishing a dollar amount per grade. That could be a very slippery slope where they want to be compensated for everything they do.

When our older kids (almost 6 and 4.5) do a good job going above and beyond with helping, we give them money for their savings jar.

dj06482 wrote: My parents always took my brother and .... I ...out for dinner to celebrate our report cards. I think it's important to recognize the achievement and encourage your kids, but I think there's a danger in establishing a dollar amount per grade. That could be a very slippery slope where they want to be compensated for everything they do. When our older kids (almost 6 and 4.5) do a good job going above and beyond with helping, we give them money for their savings jar.

and I guess we can assume that grammar wasn't one of the ones for which you received dinner .....

I dont have kids but I saw one on tv. I would tell them "get A's or the boogy monster will eat your brains while you sleep". Then I would put some sort of a random noise maker in their closet.

Your kids will work to their own determined level of satisfaction regardless of the monetary reward - especially at the level you're talking If one does better than the other, and gets more reward, that's an early lesson in how life works. Rewarding them with money is the best possible message. Personal satisfaction will come either way. The money is a bonus, and teaches them early that there is a relationship between hard work, results, and monetary reward.

When we began rewarding our kids for A's we got lots more of them.

The reward has to be enough to get their attention and make it worthwhile doing the schoolwork vs. going to a party or something else.

My oldest got a car one year. We surprised her by doing it with a great big red bow and parking it in front so she got lots of attention.

But then she'd brought her grades up from a consistent barely passing to a couple of 6 weeks of straight A/s.

She went on to stay on the Dean's list in college too. It's a habit and a work ethic that is very good to encourage. This will pay off later in life too as they become accustomed to doing well and feel bad when they don't.

We have always rewarded our daughters for good grades. However, we do it as a token acknowledgement of the achievement. We pay $1 per A, and $1 per grade that goes up over the previous report card. Our kids are a junior in college and a junior in high school, so clearly it's not the actual monetary value that is the message here.

I have no problem rewarding good behaviour. What you have to be careful NOT to do is have that turning into bribing them for expected behaviour that they don't really have a choice about doing.

I asked my dad for a mini bike. He said there was a good chance I was only going to be a C student anyway, and that with a head injury I'd be even less employable

And he was right

Wally wrote: I asked my dad for a mini bike. He said there was a good chance I was only going to be a C student anyway, and that with a head injury I'd be even less employable

Excellent. Hilarious. I tip my hat to you.

A= 64 oz soda

B= Twinkies

oh wait.... nevermind

I think it's a good idea. It may not teach them what you intend it to, and they'll probably understand that they're being bribed to work hard at a certain point. But you do have to make money in life, and usually you don't earn it by sitting around playing video games instead of studying.

I always got a treat of some sort from both my parents and my grandma for getting good grades, up until I started middle school when I was working for my dad for spending money. From my parents, I got $1 for every A in first grade, $2 for every A in second, $3 in 3rd and so on. Straight As all year meant I got a video game.

Grades were easy for me, though. The positive reinforcement did have a negative effect on me, though. I really take it hard on myself now when I can't figure something out or fix something. Make sure your kids know it's good to fail sometimes so that you can learn from your mistakes.

Yes, that's what I told my kids. Later in life you'll work for the money you earn. Right now your job is school.