This is a tough one. As a teacher, I've done a lot of reading about how material rewards defeat students' wanting to do things for the intrinsic joy and they start to work for the reward rather than for the sheer love of doing their best work (I've worded this badly. Hopefully, you understand). This year, I stopped giving out rewards in class and started commenting more on what they were doing right (specifics, rather than a general "good job"). I have to say, that I have noticed a huge difference in their enthusiasm and accomplishments.

As a parent, you want to reward them for all that hard work. I know when my kids started coming home and saying their friends were getting money for doing well on their reports, I almost started, just because of peer pressure. Instead we started doing something fun as a family to celebrate. Things like a day spent downhill skiing. Is he still at an age where he wants to spend time with his family?

We never gave money for grades. For one of our kids getting good marks was easy but for the other one getting decent marks was a lot of work. So who do we reward? The one who gets the A's or the one who works his butt off to get B's.

Both kids were good students in that exams were always studied for, assignments were always handed in on time, and they were never late for school, and that is what we 'rewarded'. We took them out for dinner to a restaurant of their choosing at the end of the school year.

We don't give money for good grades, although our kids peers get money for them. We praise them, brag about them, proudly display the report card, and do something as a family; such as going out to a favorite restaurant to celebrate. In your case, with your son being a senior and taking such hard classes, I wouldn't hesitate to do something special for him either as a family outing or buying him a gift he has been wanting. Celebrating his hard work is worth it!

I vote for special family celebration as well. Of course you are very proud of your son's accomplishments, and you should celebrate to acknowledge them. We take our girls to a restaurant of their choice-nicer than we usually go to. But an outing of some kind sounds equally fun.

I've never wanted to get into the $ for A's thing. I agree with daisychain that it's the wrong type of incentive. But time with you, along with your happiness and willingness to celebrate will be more meaningful, I think, than handing him a gift card...

I do not reward for good grades. I have four kids. Dd14 works hard and typically gets straight As or nearly all As. She is a very conscientious student. Ds12 is a pretty good student, making mostly As and a few Bs. This semester he has been struggling with math, and for the first time ever, I think he's going to get a C+, and not for lack of effort. Dh works with him almost nightly. Ds10 has a learning disability. He struggles and struggles. 3rd grade his teacher was absolutely horrible and he had terrible self esteem WRT school b/c he was putting in so much effort and getting Cs in many classes. Last year he did great but also had a wonderful teacher. This year, his team of teachers are fabulous, but the work is much harder and he's getting a mix of A, Bs and C+. Every time he gets back a test or gets a report card, seeing his grades makes his heart sink, especially when his sister is getting straight As all the time. Youngest, dd8, has straight As with little effort (thankfully, b/c I spend so much time tutoring her brother that she's on her own with her schoolwork typically!). Additionally, our school is on a 7pt grading scale, so an 80-84 is a C+ while in most schools here, that is a B. So I have to remind myself that if my kids went to a different school, those C+s would actually be Bs.

So all that said, we praise effort. I've told them countless times that I don't care if they aren't getting straight As as long as I see them putting serious effort into their academics. If they do poorly on a test and I know it's because they didn't study, then they lose privileges. Same with projects, etc. If they do poorly on a test but I know they did as much as they could to prepare, then I tell them we will review where they went wrong but I'm not going to be upset with them. In my family, mainly because of my son's learning disability (language processing delay which wasn't discovered until third grade), it would be really hard on him if we were always rewarding our other kids for their good grades knowing that it's near impossible for him to get straight As.

So for the most part, we don't make a big thing about report cards in our house. However, since our situation is unique to our family, I don't think that others shouldn't celebrate hard work that results in good grades. And I'm fairly sure if ds10 ever gets straight As, as a family, we will certainly celebrate and my other kids would agree that it is warranted! I think some sort of celebration, like dinner, or going someplace out of the ordinary, would be a fine way to celebrate his accomplishment. I also think that, assuming your dd is putting forth good effort, despite not getting all As, then that should be recognized also.

As blfenton said, for some kids, it's not difficult to get good grades but for others, it takes a huge amount of effort. Siblings usually recognize this as well, so I think it's certainly understandable to make it more of a family celebration even if one is getting straight As while the other isn't.

When I was a kid in the 60's my dad would take all four of us for ice cream after dinner on report card day...so we were all "celebrated" no matter the grades. We didn't give our kids $...just congratulated them, etc....maybe went to dinner...I can't really remember. I'll have to ask them if they remember! We had two who were excellent students and one who did ok but struggled....so giving gifts or $ to just the two would not have been right.

I understand the point of view of those families who choose not to reward grades with money. In my experience that is the prevailing attitude of most of my friends. But we did make the choice to reward with money, so I guess I'll represent the other point of view. To be clear, I don't have an opinion at all about what other families should do. I could make a case for either approach.

I gave my children a choice - they could be rewarded with money or not. If they chose to be rewarded with money, the arrangement (once they were older, not when they were little) was that I gave them money for As, no money for Bs, and they paid me for any Cs they got. Rewarding them with money for grades, in conjunction with other things, worked very well for us.

I should explain that both my children are equally talented and fully capable of making straight As in any classes offered at our local high school without a lot of effort.

My son was easily bored and schoolwork came easily to him. He went through a time when the easier the class, the lower the grade he got. I instituted a multipronged approach that included monetary rewards for grades. I talked to both of my kids at the appropriate times about the connection between grades, higher education and money.

Giving money for grades in high school worked very well for my son in particular. For one thing, he participated in a year-round sport with 6 day a week practices and one year did 2 sports concurrently. Plus he chose to take more difficult courses most of the time. One year he also did an internship after school. He didn't have time to do all those things well and still work an after school job. If he kept his grades up, then that money helped him have spending money without an after school job.

I don't regret my decision to give grades for money at all. My son had a medical issue and the intense sports helped him quite a bit with that, in addition to all the other benefits students get from organized team sports. I am opposed to just handing money over to my teens on a regular basis without them working for it in some fashion. My way handled the issues nicely - I didn't have to keep on him about his grades, they were his own responsibility to manage. And I didn't have to give him spending money very often.

I also praised both my children for their effort, which I think is important.

I think intrinsic motivation is the most important, and that students will do much, much better with intrinsic motivation. And I will go so far as to say that in my experience, if at some point the motivation doesn't become intrinsic, the student will not sustain the effort over the long haul. But I do think the external motivation of money for grades gives a little extra push for some students in some situations.

I understand other parents' reluctance to reward grades with money. The times I was proudest of my children in high school, so proud I could burst into a million pieces, had nothing to do with grades. I was moved to tears many days with pride in my daughter one year just because she got out of bed every school day, got dressed and went to school. There was no external motivation that could have made that awful year better for her; some students' finest victory is that they dig deep within themselves and find the courage to get through the day. Money for grades is useless in that setting.

Good luck with whatever you decide. I know you must be very proud of your son.

I was going to say that we never paid our kids for grades - took them out to celebrate for dinner but nothing else, but I remembered that I did buy my oldest son a bike for passing gym class. He was in 8th grade and we were new to town. He didn't want to dress down for gym. As "punishment" he was sent to the library during gym and lunch. The thing was, he was a bookworm, and hadn't really made any friends yet to hang out with at lunch, so he was already going to the library.
And now it seemed that they were rewarding him with more library time if he didn't go to gym class. I knew that he needed a carrot, because the stick he was being given was not effective. So I promised him a new bike if he got at least a C in gym. I believe that he ended up with a B. ;)

Yes, we rewarded our kids for grades, sometimes with money and sometimes with trips or other treats. Going to school was/ is their job, and part of learning to stick with it even when you are not interested or motivated is understanding there are different reasons for persevering. I don't know a single adult who would get up and go to work every day just for praise from a respected or even beloved boss, even if he or she didn't need the money.

I remember one semester when DD worked especially hard in college, and was also head lifeguard at the campus rec center--- her choice, we didn't ask or require her to get the job and she didn't "need" the money. She did really well and I rewarded her with a surprise trip, just the two of us, just a day. We flew up to the Mall of America, she had wanted to see it ever since that first mighty ducks movie came out, lol, and I bought her a new warm weather wardrobe. It was a lot of fun and we still reminisce about it, although I have occasional twinges of remorse that we overstepped a rational carbon footprint with that trip.

I have rewarded my kids many times over the years when I felt they deserved to stand out and be acknowledged. It might have been for grades, or charitable acts, getting an advancement, winning a scholarship etc. Just this week my granddaughter got a huge advancement in her field and we took her out to eat and I bought her a trinket.
So, were I in your shoes, I would definitely make a big deal of this accomplishment with an item any guy his age would love like an Iphone or Ipad etc. Of course if you had lots of kids this would get expensive but I came from a family of seven children and we didn't have much but my parents not only praised us but gave us some money to buy ourselves a treat. It wasn 't much but it meant so much. I carried on in that manner but my gifts, due to our life style, were pricier. They turned out to be kind wonderful people who succeeded in life both spiritually and financially and they bring me little care packages now quite often. They just buy me gifts in memory of what we gave to them. So it can be a good thing or it was in my case.

Thanks for all the input. I knew opinions would be divided. I do think there's a difference between saying "if you get these grades, I'll buy you this" versus "wow, awesome report card, I know how hard you worked so here's a little something..." And obviously, it depends on the kid. Mine isn't the type who would have his hand out after every report card. My older DS? Totally would.

What I have decided to do is wait for both kids' report cards to come out, and I know both will be good (DS already saw his because he had to sign off on sending the report to colleges; and DD probably has all As except for one subject). We will go out to dinner somewhere nice as a family to celebrate their accomplishments, and I will quietly slip DS something like a gift card and will maybe get DD the Vera Bradley slippers she's been wanting (what is with this obsession with Vera B.?) Neither kid will really be aware of the other's reward because they barely see each other these days!

Yes, we rewarded our kids for grades, sometimes with money and sometimes with trips or other treats. Going to school was/ is their job, and part of learning to stick with it even when you are not interested or motivated is understanding there are different reasons for persevering. I don't know a single adult who would get up and go to work every day just for praise from a respected or even beloved boss, even if he or she didn't need the money.

Exactly. Perfectly phrased.

When I was growing up, I was the good girl, the smart one and always got As. My brother was bright but never "applied" himself so his grades were always mediocre. My parents tried their best to encourage him and gush over any Bs he go, while my As would get a "that's nice" or, "you always do well." I got tired of it and told my folks they can gush all they want over his grades, so long as they paid me for my As. So they started paying...I think it was something small like $2 an A. Next thing we know, my brother starts doing better and getting As too. Go figure.

My oldest is 32 and my youngest are 11. We never rewarded with money but we praised like crazy.

I'm glad that we didn't start that tradition because we have 4 kids and out of the 4, academics comes easy to 3 of them and for my child with LD....nothing comes easy.

He works harder than any of my kids and gets the lowest grades. When I praise him I tell him that I admire how hard he works rather than his grades.

I praise his brother for his hard work and his grades but I do it privately.

This reminds me of Accelerated Reading and sending kids to the AR store for earning points in reading. In my opinion, this awful program has single handedly caused more kids to dislike reading than just about any other factor at our school.

Is rewarding a child for good grades similar to rewarding a child for reading? I don't know.

This reminds me of Accelerated Reading and sending kids to the AR store for earning points in reading. In my opinion, this awful program has single handedly caused more kids to dislike reading than just about any other factor at our school.

Is rewarding a child for good grades similar to rewarding a child for reading? I don't know.

Red lover, I'm laughing because Accelerated Reader was a big fat pain in the neck here at our house. Both my kids and I love to read. Accelerated Reader and another program the school had where kids kept track of the pages they read were nothing but a drag most of the time. For us it was like telling people they could eat all the ice cream they want, but they have to count the number of bites and be tested about the flavor.

The teachers told me Accelerated Reader helped some of the kids, although clearly not mine. The program was just an inconvenience to my kids, though; if it dinged my kids' desire to read, they had plenty of reading love to spare.

I think paying for reading and paying for grades are essentially the same thing. And I say if paying for reading helps some kids, and if their parents and teachers think that's a useful tool and want to use it, then go for it. I didn't pay my kids for reading because they read without it. Instead, I had to look at motivation to get them to occasionally put down a book and interact with the rest of the world.

I think parents have to take a look at what motivates their kid and what works for their family and make the decision they feel is best.

This post was edited by daisyinga on Wed, Nov 20, 13 at 12:49

No money for grades but I do have a confession. I once paid $20. for a soccer goal... Yes. I. Did.

Max was an awesome soccer player who had great ball skills but he always passed the ball instead of making the goal. He was afraid he would miss. I didn't discuss this with him, I could just tell. One day, right before a game, I told him I would give him $20. if he made a goal. And he did.

From that day on, he became a high scoring member of his team. That single $20. day bought him confidence. Priceless, in my book.

DH used to tell our kids it was their "job" to do as well in school as they could.....

OMG, I thought that ours was the only family with such a negative feeling about the Accelerated Reading program. My two younger kids had this program in elementary school. They enjoyed reading until they started it. Their biggest complaint was that there weren't enough books at their level that interested them. My daughter finally got back into reading in high school, and my son just started reading for pleasure (other than Harry Potter) at age 24. My oldest, who is 34 now, didn't have to endure the program and has always simply devoured books. I'm so glad that his love of reading wasn't ruined by this program.

For anybody who might be following this thread who have children who hate AR: if I had a young child now who hated Accelerated Reader and I felt the program was damaging my child's love of reading, I would talk to his or her teacher and if that failed, one of the administration.

If I remember correctly, and my memory is hazy, my son's teacher offered to add additional books to the tests available and I think offered an alternative to AR for my son. My daughter had the same teacher and I know she waived the AR requirement one 6 weeks for my daughter.

I didn't ask for special arrangements for my children (except one 6 weeks for my daughter at the suggestion of her teacher) because the program wasn't hurting my children, just inconveniencing them. I felt they could and should just roll with it in order to make their teachers' lives easier.

Our elementary school had amazing teachers and they were very receptive to providing a more tailored atmosphere that fostered a love of reading. Particularly if they knew the parents would be committed enough to follow up with an alternate plan if one was offered.

I think that AR is convenient for some of the teachers, and I'm a big fan of keeping things convenient for the teachers as long as it doesn't hurt learning. And I know there were children in my kids' classes who loved the program and read more because of it. But if the program is impeding progress for some kids, teachers may have the flexibility to offer other options.

Our kids' schools had that accelerated reader program in elementary grades and I remember the children taking tests and being surprised at the details they couldn't remember. They learned to read with intention because they knew they needed to answer the questions on the test. As I recall, the kids were able to read books on their level and higher, just not lower, and they got a ticket for an ice cream bar from the cafeteria when they hit their goals. They never got prizes from an AR store--- or if they did, I did not know about it. I guess the program differed from school to school in its implementation? My kids were all great readers but if I felt it would help one of them read I would have paid him or her in a red hot minute.

I would have, too, kswl.

Growing up, my parents rewarded good grades in many ways.It was a disaster, causing quite a rift in the family.My older sister was an extremely focused and determined person. I was not and now that I look back I believe I had some form of ADD. I wanted to do well academically, but my mind was drifting all over the place. I had average grades. On the other hand, I was popular and well-liked. My sister was jealous of that.

My parents bought her a car at age 16 but I did not get one because my grades (mostly Bs with the occasional C or even D in math), were not good enough. When I wanted contact lenses, I had to pay for them myself, while they paid for hers as a reward for good grades, and so on. All of this really did a number on my self-esteem as well as my relationship with my parents. I felt like a failure, although I went on to do pretty well in life.

I love the idea of a family outing for ice cream when report cards come out. It demonstrates that you value each child for being the special person that they are. Reward good grades by paying for the best college they can attend, along with the words "we are just so very proud of you", said out of earshot of the other kids. A personal moment to let the kid know that you recognize his special efforts. Loving praise goes a lot farther than money or things.

Dedtired--I know this sounds really corny but when I read your post I became teary eyed.

Reread my post above and you will understand.

My guy works so hard and then feels so defeated sometimes. I want to do everything I can not to add to that feeling. Thank you for your post.

Oh, Red, now I am getting teary! Anyone who has felt like the less-favored child knows how devastating it can be. You are a good and sensitive mom. Your son is special in so many ways. How do we begin to decide which achievements to reward? What talent is more special than another? A reward to only one child becomes a slight to the other.

Keep up the good work.