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Paying kids for their grades ....

HisChamaoleGirlHisChamaoleGirl member
in School-Aged Children
When I was a kid my parents offered to pay us kids for our grades. We earned $10 for every A, $5 for every B, and $1 for every C. I was thinking that this might provide motivation, as well as a money management opportunity, to incorporate for this school year. Thoughts ?

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Re: Paying kids for their grades ....

  • neverblushedneverblushed member

    One thing you might consider is grade inflation.  When I was in school, As were a real achievement, B's meant "good work", and C's were okay-but-not-fantastic. A grade of D or F was considered a "bad" grade.

    Because of competition to get into college, schools across the country routinely give more work than they did 20 years ago, but also much higher grades.  For most high school students destined for college, it's more like A = awesome/B = borderline/C=crappy. Certainly, kids earn Ds and Fs on their report cards, but it's usually a situation in which the kid didn't turn in homework or didn't make up a test, etc.  

    So, you might not want to set up a system that rewards kids for earning Cs, because in many schools a C now constitutes a "bad" grade.  However, if you think your child will be motivated to work hard in school by a monetary reward, then go for it!

    I don't generally give a monetary reward for grades.  Sometimes we'll celebrate a good report card with our DD by taking her out to dinner.   She's very conscientious and gets straight As pretty much every quarter, so we actually have to work to keep her from getting too stressed out about grades.

    High School English teacher and mom of 2 kids:

    DD, born 9/06/00 -- 12th grade
    DS, born 8/25/04 -- 7th grade
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  • JoAnna914JoAnna914 member

    I do not have school-aged children, but I have a "scholarship" system that I set up with my niece with the blessing of my sister.  I started it with her last year during her fourth grade year when she was having a hard time with motivation as a way to demonstrate the correlation between grades and getting money for college - i.e., good grades = someone will pay for your college.  She gets $5 for each A, $2 for each B, nothing for Cs (and she pays me for Ds and Fs, lol).  One grading period after starting this "scholarship" program, the kid had straight As, and she was really, really excited to tell me how much money I owed her, lol. 

    She just started fifth grade and we have the same arrangement for this year.  She has become VERY serious about her studies, and has already aced her first couple of quizzes, which is especially exciting because one of those quizzes was in math, a subject she had a difficult time with last year.  So in sum, I think that a monetary reward can work as long as there is a "lesson" behind it and it's not just a bribe.

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  • babyAutumnbabyAutumn member
    As a teacher, I would strongly discourage this type of reward.  Some kids, like myself, got As without any effort and some kids, like my younger brother, don't earn Cs because they are lazy but because they really have difficulties.  Sending them the message that "you aren't good enough" isn't the way to motivate them to do better.  I actually think that this method will motivate some children but, on the whole, could likely damage self-esteem in many.
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