My D tells me that XW's new H gave her $5 for her fantastic report card. Personally, I was nearly a straight A student and never got monetary reward for it. It puts me in a position where if I don't give her a monetary reward as does OM D will view me as a cheapskate or something?

It should be noted that OM never finished HS and if his parents gave him rewards, either it had no impact on his future efforts or he didn't get rich too quickly.

What should I do? I would prefer to reward her in other ways, not cash as she's only in 1st grade.

Geez, my first grader doesn't have a clue what a report card is. Around here, kids in early elementary don't even get regular grades, they just get things like "E" for emerging skill. Who in their right mine would pay good grades, especially a little kid? Nothing like making them obsess about grades at an early age.

I would tell her what I thought of paying for grades. My 13 year old has mentioned that she has friends who get paid ten bucks for each A, but she doesn't really expect me to do it too - especially since she knows that not only do I think it is wrong, but I'd go broke very quickly.

Cat,

John Redmund addresses a situation similar to that in a recent column. You might check WWW.johnrosemund.com He said something to the effect that you don't have to do the same thing.
You could just expain to her that while she probably likes getting paid for good grades that you think it is something that she should do for the pride she feels in that accomplishment and that you feel pride too which is better than money.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">It puts me in a position where if I don't give her a monetary reward as does OM D will view me as a cheapskate or something?

</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Cat, It really doesn't matter what he thinks, but how you feel about how your daughter should be raised. I love the saying, what you think of me is none of my business. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

Blessings,

D.

I just checked link & it's not working, if you are interested and need the website, let me know and I will find it for you

<small>[ March 13, 2003, 05:44 PM: Message edited by: WillGetThruThis ]</small>

You will find varying views on the subject. I got paid for good grades, but not $5.

I got stuff like a quarter for improvement over the last report card, and a nickel for every B, dime for every A. So, the amount was not anything to brag about.

I gave my daughter a night out with her friends playing lazer tag and eating pizza. . . . for a great job with grades. . .

a sleep over, a trip to the zoo, what would she like to do to celebrate?

I do give money for good grades when son was working for money for real, and he was interested in saving money. . . . you can work physical for money or you can work mentally for money, either way, but i did not give it until son was working on his own earning money. . . .

btw, sone took his hard earned money and bought a stock that he loves, and its doing real well . . son was 13 at the time. . .

wiftty

Cat,

When this happens just say "that was very nice of him to do that, did you remember thank him?"

She knows you don't pay money for grades, because it's apparently not something you've done in the past..

It doesn't make you look 'bad' or him 'good' in her eyes..just different..and that's not a bad thing..

I personally don't pay money for grades..but I know parents who do..

Maybe look at this way..she got a "bonus" on her paycheck..her grades are her paycheck for all the work she's done for the semester..and the money
was an added bonus..

the fact that OM never finished high school has nothing to do with how it made you feel..and he probably realizes the importance of a high school diploma now..and maybe his parents didn't give him money for his grades, but maybe if they would have..it would have made a difference in if he finished or not..

If you want to reward your daughter in other ways..then do so..your NOT or at least shouldn't feel as if your in a competion w/ OM for your daughters love..she's your daughter--she will always love you..

To those that don't believe in giving money for success or achievement

1) do you only pay for physical labor? if so, what is the difference?

2) does the real world reward hard work and achievement for intellectual successes?

3) what symbolism does money have in your life?

wiftty

I expect pay in exchange for the production of goods or services. Learning is, or should be, for the joy of it. Nothing of value to anyone else is produced by a student, at least until perhaps graduate school, where their research may make a valuable contribution to society (and for which they usually get paid). There is no parallel between a worker and a student, in spite of the fact that the goal of the public school system is to create good factory employees who do what they are told rather than thinking for themselves. The student is paying for (or their parents are) an education - the student is the client. This is why it drove me nuts when I was teaching at the college level and some of my colleagues compared the students' skipping class to not going to work. I did not take attendance in my lecture classes - if the students chose not to come and to throw away the money they had paid for me to teach them, then that was their perogative. It was a rare student who could consistently skip and yet still pass, and it was a rare student who consistently attended and failed, but it was their choice, no matter how unwise, because they were the clients and I was providing the service.

Thanks everyone for your input. I have obviously struck onto an interesting topic that can probably be expanded to other things like allowances, buying your kid a BMW, etc....

I grew up in an upper middle class area where kid's parents bought them big a$$ TransAms, Camaros, even Corvettes. I had my grandfather's old 1964 Dodge Dart with "three on the tree".

I am so grateful for not being in that clique as most of the idiots who were so blessed with these schnazzy muscle cars ended up wrapping them around big a$$ oak trees while under the influence of various substances purchased with the $20 per B- they got from their adoring parents.

My weekly allowance was if memory serves, $5 a week, enough for gas that cost $0.499 at the time.

Thanks again all!!!

Jay

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I expect pay in exchange for the production of goods or services. . . . . Nothing of value to anyone else is produced by a student, at least until perhaps graduate school, where their research may make a valuable contribution to society (and for which they usually get paid). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">WOW, thinking just like my X, where the world exists prior to the industrial revolution. Where labor was required because there was no other way to survive. . . . as my X told me, "You am not real because you don't put your butt on the line for others, such as police, firefighters or EMTS."

I guess then you make your own clothes, grow your own food, and barter for all your other needs. Because you certainly wouldn't want to be a parasite and profit off of the intellectual capitalism that brought cars, plastics, computers, machine made clothes, drugs and antibiotics.

Nellie, WE live in a world of capitalism, where success and failure is based upon intellectual capitalism. Most failures come from mistakes in management, NOT from mistakes on the production line. In management, where the competition is fiercier and therefore, so are the rewards. in order to prepare for the rewards, one must learn how to succeed, how to master material, how to challenge oneself to overcome obstacles, how to leverage ideas and create new ones to create productivity. All these concepts can be learned in formal education, and are learned in the real world. Mechanical engineering, civil engineering are both production oriented. Software engineering deals with concepts and the abstract, and what you are using here today. . . in fact, most of my jobs, which i have been well paid for, create information and knowledge, where the power lies. and i expect to be well rewarded for that talent and creativity. To create knowledge is very, very lucrative.

not all inventions come from education, there are many, manymore that come from industry, which you use every single day. To think otherwise is nieve, and to only reward physical labor is very limiting to one's potential. but that is how very myopic, nieve people view the world, only within the context of what they can see, touch and comprehend.

Through my own creativity, i learned on the job because of my desires of knowledge and wants to live comfortably, i have equated hard intellectual work with success, and have lived comfortably, up until my X decided that i was too intellectually powerful or too rich or some such crap, and would prefer to live like you are living rather than to live comfortably. . . because, in her words., "i get more sympathy from others."

the world is a much bigger, vaster place full of knoweldge and choices. Money is a store of value to compensate one for that success, and to give the opportunity to choose when one wants to, and one can create comfortableness with intellectual successes faster and in more various ways than just to learn for the fun of it. I was given money, and was taught to save for something you really want, to work and save towards something i wanted, to be goal oriented. . . being taught about money. . . . there are social lessons to be taught around money, and there are financial lessons to be taught around money. . . .

there are lessons to be learned and taught everywhere, and sometimes, they can start at a very early age. . . I was taught how to save money starting in first grade. . . how to earn money in middle school or junior high, and how to invest money in college. its just another part of life to learn about how money is used and how to use money.

good luck in your quest for sympathy

wiftty

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 09:11 AM: Message edited by: WhenIfindthetime ]</small>

Wiffty,

I agree that intellectual knowledge should be rewarded..but, I look at my kids A's and see that as PART OF their reward--the other reward is the fact that they learned...they expanded their knowledge..something nobody can take away--and as they learn more it expands their knowledge and when they are older they can recieve financial rewards for what they have learned..

Paying children for grades is not a good idea, in my opinion. The reward is the grade itself, and in knowing you did your best. Besides, some children can put forth their best efforts and still only earn a passing grade, or even a lesser one.

Just my opinion,
H_P

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: hopeful_person ]</small>

Oh for Pete's sake, Wiffty, I did not say that I valued only the fruits of physical labor, or that I was looking for sympathy. My career involves no more physical labor than is required to lift a book. No one pays me just for being intelligent - I get paid for providing services to others by virtue of my knowledge and intelligence, as does, I presume, your ex-wife. When I was a computer programmer, no one would have paid me if I had not been able to produce tangible products such as code and reports.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">one can create comfortableness with intellectual successes faster and in more various ways than just to learn for the fun of it</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I have always been perfectly "comfortable" with my intellectual successes without anyone paying me for them. I did not grow up needing monetaryl rewards in order to value learning, and neither do my kids.

Nellie- I have to disagree with this statement
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Nothing of value to anyone else is produced by a student, at least until perhaps graduate school, where their research may make a valuable contribution to society (and for which they usually get paid). </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I am a student nurse, part of my training involves clinical time in a hospital setting. The nurses find us student to be of great value. We help to ease the already heavy workload by taking one or two patients off their hands for the time we are there. There have been times, because we have fresh minds, are not burned out from the high stress, and we probably just learned it, that we catch things that they may not have because we have the time to do the research that they do not. So, students provide a great value to society. I also know all of my college instructors will disagree with you also on the above statement.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">There is no parallel between a worker and a student, in spite of the fact that the goal of the public school system is to create good factory employees who do what they are told rather than thinking for themselves. </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I think the gov. of my state would disagree with you. He went to the public school system, became a laywer, and is now gov. Quite a few of my classmates are very successful in their occupations and they are not factory workers. Also remember, without the factory you would not have the products in your home or the tools you use to teach with. I know plenty kids who went to private schools and are doing absolutely nothing contstructive with their lives.

The public school I attended required us to put some thinking into our work. My children attend the same school district, they have great teachers who really care about their students, and encourage them to think, analyze and think outside the box when problem solving. They don't encourage the children to do as they are told and not question things.

<small>[ March 15, 2003, 01:17 PM: Message edited by: Sue with hope ]</small>

Sue,

if you want to advance in life, you are a student of life and work and people ALL your life. . ..

i agree with your points. . .

i am a student of my environment every single day, work and homelife. . .

wiftty

Sue with hope,

Pre-professional training is in many ways similar to graduate school - but this thread was not about training received by adults. This was about a first grader. Children should learn for the joy of it, and paying them for report cards interferes with that process.

Of course not everyone who graduates from public school ends up as a factory worker - my point was that I believe that the goal of the public school system is not to produce creative, independent thinkers (See John Gatto's or John Holt's books for more on this topic). Private schools are not necessarily any better. That does not mean that there aren't excellent teachers out there - after all, both Gatto and Holt were teachers for years.

<small>[ March 16, 2003, 07:31 AM: Message edited by: Nellie1 ]</small>