If my kids get straight As, their reward is getting straight As. It's their own achievement, and as such, getting the grades is its own reward. If I reward them for it, it takes the ownership of the achievement away from them.

This is why I will never reward them for an accomplishment they have earned.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about you teach your kids to be intrinsically motivated, and to experience the connection between working hard and doing well?
Ridiculous to pay a kid $500 for grades. WTH??

Doesn't basically every adult employed outside the home get financially rewarded for doing so? Many jobs also give performance bonuses. Nothe sure why this is such a strange concept.

The reward they get for good grades is opprtunity. The opportunity to go to the college of their choice. The opportunity to pursue their chosen interest. The opportunity to get a good job and have a nice life. They should be able to understand this. They aren’t working for you. They are working for themselves.

For many of us, who don't have "chosen interests", the opportunity is not of any value. Money are the only value, thus being paid for grades, getting merit scholarship and getting salary with bonuses are the motivators. I don't what I want to do when I grow up, in a meantime I prefer to be paid.

Sounds as if you are setting your kids up for a delightfully middling existence.

I can't "set" kid up for any kind of existence, it's their job. I am happy with my middling existence.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about you teach your kids to be intrinsically motivated, and to experience the connection between working hard and doing well?
Ridiculous to pay a kid $500 for grades. WTH??

Doesn't basically every adult employed outside the home get financially rewarded for doing so? Many jobs also give performance bonuses. Nothe sure why this is such a strange concept.

The reward they get for good grades is opprtunity. The opportunity to go to the college of their choice. The opportunity to pursue their chosen interest. The opportunity to get a good job and have a nice life. They should be able to understand this. They aren’t working for you. They are working for themselves.

For many of us, who don't have "chosen interests", the opportunity is not of any value. Money are the only value, thus being paid for grades, getting merit scholarship and getting salary with bonuses are the motivators. I don't what I want to do when I grow up, in a meantime I prefer to be paid.

Sounds as if you are setting your kids up for a delightfully middling existence.

Our kids are not paid, good grades are expected, and they are expected to take the lead on getting their work done, we are preparing them for college.

For kid #1, if you are not making anything below a B, you get to keep your iPhone. And I realize flaming is about to happen, but:

1. Kid in question is at TJ, and carrying a full load, so keeping everything at an A or B is harder than it might initially seem, and

2. Kid in question also has ADHD. So if grades are slipping there is an excellent chance he was reading Twitter jokes for hours on end and until 2 am, rather than doing homework. Therefore, it’s time for an electronics crackdown.

BTW, it’s been a terrible semester in math, so you might see a TJ kid carrying a flip phone, instead of a smartphone this week. Now, you know why.

Kid #2 is still in MS. And *cannot cope* if a grade drops down to an A-. Super, over the top perfectionist, who really believes the world will end if she gets an A- for the quarter. In band. In middle school. She needs to learn that sometimes in life you can work flat out and still get an A- or (heaven help us) a B. Maybe not in a FCPS MS. But if she goes to TJ too. Or in college. Or grad school. Bs happen. Paying for As would just reinforce the obsessing for this kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We never paid for grades, all kids are A students. They are all quick learners and know they do it not for money but for the sake of knowledge. My senior is also a national merit scholarship finalist and won several national level science awards. How do you pay for those?

Give them equity in your estate.

They are going to get everything anyway . The only monetary encouragement I gave to my senior one: if there will be a full ride from any colleges, and the kid will chose to go there, I will put money down payment on kid's choice of real estate. So the kid has his own place to live after graduation.

Anonymous wrote:We never paid for grades, all kids are A students. They are all quick learners and know they do it not for money but for the sake of knowledge. My senior is also a national merit scholarship finalist and won several national level science awards. How do you pay for those?

Give them equity in your estate.

We never paid for grades, all kids are A students. They are all quick learners and know they do it not for money but for the sake of knowledge. My senior is also a national merit scholarship finalist and won several national level science awards. How do you pay for those?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We give only for straight As. We might have decided differently if we thought the kid wasn't capable of straight As, but in our case, 5 or 6 As would be simple, it's getting all As that seems more challenging.

All kids are capable of straight 8s. Coming from someone with a learning disability who received special ed.

Yes, because every learning disability is exactly like yours, every school is exactly like the one you attended, no classes are harder to get an A in than the ones you took, & no teachers have more rigid grading standards than yourteachers did. Obviously.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I pay for As and nothing else. My son's job is school so he should get something for his outstanding performance just like I do. How many of us would work hard for free?

So then, come high school, should your kid play it safe, or stretch and learn?

A smart kid would figure out the way to make the most money there. Nobody really learns anything useful in class anyway, it's all just exercise for the brain and character.

Smart and shortsighted.

Future manager of not so shortsighted kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I pay for As and nothing else. My son's job is school so he should get something for his outstanding performance just like I do. How many of us would work hard for free?

So then, come high school, should your kid play it safe, or stretch and learn?

A smart kid would figure out the way to make the most money there. Nobody really learns anything useful in class anyway, it's all just exercise for the brain and character.

Smart and shortsighted.

1 bitcoin or 1 share of amazon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I pay for As and nothing else. My son's job is school so he should get something for his outstanding performance just like I do. How many of us would work hard for free?

So then, come high school, should your kid play it safe, or stretch and learn?

A smart kid would figure out the way to make the most money there. Nobody really learns anything useful in class anyway, it's all just exercise for the brain and character.

Anonymous wrote:I pay for As and nothing else. My son's job is school so he should get something for his outstanding performance just like I do. How many of us would work hard for free?

So then, come high school, should your kid play it safe, or stretch and learn?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We give only for straight As. We might have decided differently if we thought the kid wasn't capable of straight As, but in our case, 5 or 6 As would be simple, it's getting all As that seems more challenging.

All kids are capable of straight 8s. Coming from someone with a learning disability who received special ed.

This is ridiculous. All kids are capable of pitching for MLB too.