How to get kid to care about grades? Are there local places that give rewards for good grades?

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know of any places in the DC area that give kids some kind of freebie for good report cards? For example I know that nationally some locations of McDonald's and Krispy Kreme do but not sure if any DC-area locations participate. Montgomery County preferred, but would be helpful to hear about elsewhere in the DC area as well.

My 4th grader is making tons of careless mistakes on quizzes and tests and getting a lot of Bs and sometimes Cs, and currently has no motivation to slow down/check her work... she doesn't care about her grades at all and just wants to finish things as quickly as possible. I would rather avoid starting a direct "your parents care about your grades and will pay you or give you a reward for every A" precedent if possible, for reasons including but not limited to the fact that I think that even with full effort she has some Bs in her future and that's fine with us and not something I want her to feel like we're disappointed in her for. But it's just frustrating to see her get things wrong that I know she'd get right if she was more slow and careful. So I figured something external that gives a little motivation seems ideal.

Open to other suggestions, though! Have other people been through situations like this with your kid(s)? How did you handle it and did anything help?

[Anonymous]

Reward for As and Bs.
I know people are quick to diagnose on this board but fyi my DD does the same and got diagnosed with adhd in 6th grade. It’s harder for girls to get diagnosed because there symptoms are not usually behavioral/disruptive.
Her accommodation plan includes teacher verbally reminding her to take her time before any test/quiz and making sure she has read instructions and understands the assignment

[Anonymous]

Yeah I agree I would focus on the behavior and figure out if she knows why she rushes. Is she forgetting to look at the instructions and check her work? The "I don't care about my grades" could just be a mask bc she feels uncomfortable. And like the PP, my DD who has ADHD and anxiety does this quite a bit. How well she does directly relates to whether she remembers to read/re-read the instructions and whether she has checked her work.

[Anonymous]

RIP Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza Reading Program. Oh how I miss you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I agree I would focus on the behavior and figure out if she knows why she rushes. Is she forgetting to look at the instructions and check her work? The "I don't care about my grades" could just be a mask bc she feels uncomfortable. And like the PP, my DD who has ADHD and anxiety does this quite a bit. How well she does directly relates to whether she remembers to read/re-read the instructions and whether she has checked her work.

She seems to genuinely not care one way or the other about her grades, but also says she hates checking her work and just wants to be done (they're allowed to read once they finish, which surely doesn't help the situation, but I think she would also rather stare at the wall than spend more time on math or other schoolwork that bores her, especially when it's just checking it back over for mistakes.)

I have ADHD (and totally relate to disliking the slow careful process of checking your work, but I was also always highly grades-motivated) and she has some signs that point in that direction as well, but she doesn't meet enough of the list of criteria to be diagnosed so I don't think there are any accomodations in her future unfortunately, even though they would probably help with this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I agree I would focus on the behavior and figure out if she knows why she rushes. Is she forgetting to look at the instructions and check her work? The "I don't care about my grades" could just be a mask bc she feels uncomfortable. And like the PP, my DD who has ADHD and anxiety does this quite a bit. How well she does directly relates to whether she remembers to read/re-read the instructions and whether she has checked her work.

She seems to genuinely not care one way or the other about her grades, but also says she hates checking her work and just wants to be done (they're allowed to read once they finish, which surely doesn't help the situation, but I think she would also rather stare at the wall than spend more time on math or other schoolwork that bores her, especially when it's just checking it back over for mistakes.)

I have ADHD (and totally relate to disliking the slow careful process of checking your work, but I was also always highly grades-motivated) and she has some signs that point in that direction as well, but she doesn't meet enough of the list of criteria to be diagnosed so I don't think there are any accomodations in her future unfortunately, even though they would probably help with this.

You don't need accommodations through a school to teach your child (yourself) that she should check her work and re-read instructions.

[Anonymous]

We always emphasized effort with DS, if he studied and tried his best and earned a B we were not upset but we would work on helping him understand the material. We started with having him redo work that had mistakes in it, correcting his mistakes. A few weeks of doing that in 2nd grade led to a lot fewer mistakes because he did not want to redo his school work at home. Start there. If she has work sent home that has mistakes, sit with her and redo the work. Explain that you will be doing this for every assignment. She will probably slow down because the consequence is having to redo the work at home.

DS gets to choose a restaurant for dinner when his report card comes home with all effort scores that show he is making his best effort.

[Anonymous]

Make her correct all of her mistakes. Even if the teacher doesn’t change grades or accept submissions. She can correct all and turn them into you…if that is an option- if everyone is on computer, I don’t know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Make her correct all of her mistakes. Even if the teacher doesn’t change grades or accept submissions. She can correct all and turn them into you…if that is an option- if everyone is on computer, I don’t know.

*everything

[Anonymous]

I would make her correct her work at home and give her extra practice.

[Anonymous]

She’s young. Many, many, many kids are just like her.

[Anonymous]

Please don’t focus so much on grades at this age, especially at it does appear that she may have a challenge with attention and focusing on details. Every child is not going to get all As. She’s knows she is disappointing you already, I am sure.

Have the work sent home, and go over the errors with her without scolding and repeating that if she’d be more careful she’d do better. Shaming is not helpful. Just say that you want to be sure she understands the material. Over time, she will recognize for herself that she needs to be more careful.

It’s about learning to love learning, and being a good human. Elementary grades do not matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t focus so much on grades at this age, especially at it does appear that she may have a challenge with attention and focusing on details. Every child is not going to get all As. She’s knows she is disappointing you already, I am sure.

Have the work sent home, and go over the errors with her without scolding and repeating that if she’d be more careful she’d do better. Shaming is not helpful. Just say that you want to be sure she understands the material. Over time, she will recognize for herself that she needs to be more careful.

It’s about learning to love learning, and being a good human. Elementary grades do not matter.

Agree, you don't shame the child. You redo the work and discuss how it is important to understand what she is learning and to be able to show the teacher that she understands what she is learning. You work with her to understand the material. More likely then not, she will learn that she needs to take her time at school so that she doesn't have to redo the work at home.

If she is making mistakes because she doesn't understand the material then you are helping her learn the material and you can better understand where she is in school. Not every student is an A student, or a 4 in FCPS, more kids then people like to believe are struggling in ES and could use the extra help at school and at home.

[Anonymous]

She has ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She has ADHD.

Is this really that uncommon among ordinary preteens?