Aibu to offer my daughter money incentives for good gcse grades?

[Whatsmyname26]

My daughter is just starting to do some GCSEs with her first exam later this year. She is sitting them early and achieving well (looking at a level 5/6 atm) but I would like to encourage her to reach for the higher grades and remember children being given money incentives for different grades when I did my exams. Has anyone done this? Did it help encourage them to work harder to achieve higher marks? If so how much per top grade? She is only sitting one gcse this year and currently looking to sit another either November this year or next June.

Does a reward help incentivise them or should they just work because they should? I should point out she is autistic too.

I'm planning to give DS a bit of an extra incentive to revise hard for his upcoming exams. I hadn't planned to originally, but he's a lazy but bright lad and I really want to encourage him to reach his potential.

@ddraigygoch in my job I get finically incentives for achieving my quarterly targets. So my employer basically does what OP is suggesting

Tricky logic there. My friend's job gives them all free beer on Fridays.

I assume your job pays you to some extent just to show up – should we then pay our kids for going to school in the first place?

The adult world does all kinds of things we wouldn't teach or encourage our kids to do.

Our job is to raise them with meaningful values and strong ethics, and then they can make their own decisions.

Just because something exists in the wider world doesn't mean it's 'right' or 'good', or that it's something kids should base their developing behaviour on. It's set up based on the idea that adults have already cemented and set their value systems and expectations. Kids haven't. How we raise them has an impact on that.

I had a friend at school who clever but lazy and doing badly. Flunked her mocks.
Her parents offered £1000 per A grade.
She pulled her socks up and got 9 As obviously parents hadn’t expected that.
They payed up and put it in an account should would only get access to on getting into university. Well she did work at her A levels and got the account.

So it can work sometimes. But can prove expensive!

When I took GCSEs I got £100 for every A, £50 for a B and £25 for a C. I was determined to get all A's because I would have got around £1100 😂
It worked. And I was quite studious anyway but it did give me the extra push. Plus it was more the acknowledgment for me that it was hard work.

But I don't get paid for showing up @ladybee28 I get paid for using my time to generate them profit with zero other benefit to me other than fin coal compensation.

On top of that my company has worked out that £900 every quarter makes us push just a little bit harder and that I'm willing to maybe stray outside my contracted hours to achieve targets.

Which I am.

*The adult world does all kinds of things we wouldn't teach or encourage our kids to do.

Our job is to raise them with meaningful values and strong ethics, and then they can make their own decisions.*

I disagree. My children will learn that more effort means bigger pay off and more money makes life a lot easier.

I did. She's a grafter any way, but I knew th criticality of her GCSEs, as a stepping stone for her choseyn future career path. She achieved straight a or a star and the money was then used for jnter railing, I then did it again for her a levels, but by that point it was a bit irrelevant, she was on her way and knew what she could achieve, but again she came out with straight a or a star results, she now has a first in law, I didn't financially reward for that.

In our jobs we get paid, I see no reason if you can afford it why not. This bullocks about success being its own reward is bullshit. I certainly don't work for free, sitting back thinking I succeeded so that's my reward. It's hard for kids to make the connection for something years later. And some cash in hand is simply the cherry on the cake and reward for the hard work they need to put in.

My son is 5.

He plays for the local football team.
He gets paid for every goal he scores every week.

Since this agreement he's been scoring 4 or 5 goals a week. The first thing he does is run in and tell me how much money he's made.

My parents didn’t have that sort of money when I was sitting my GCSEs and to be honest I didn’t need to the incentive but they were a constant source of support.
My mom asked her Spanish colleague to help me and I went round to her house and had dinner with the family and they just spoke Spanish at me the whole time (I ended up with an A*)
They would also help me schedule my time so I didn’t miss out on fun stuff with the family, but still did all the revision.
They recorded all the bitsize revision guides that were shown on the tv at about 1am, and my dad used the work computer to print off old GCSE papers.
My parents were really wonderful actually looking back.

@ddraigygoch we definitely have different value systems then.

I get paid damn well, to a great extent because I take pleasure in what I do, so I do a better job with less effort. Working purely for financial compensation sounds hellish to me.

But maybe I'm biased - my job is to work every day with hundreds of people who are miserable and burned out from trying to 'achieve' financial success at the cost of their integrity.

It's ugly.

My jobs OK. And I never said I want my kids to hate their jobs. But I wouldn't go there for free.

I would rather be in a well paid job with Funchal security that I hate than be worried about money.

We have an agreement to contribute towards his first car if he does well.

Working purely for financial compensation sounds hellish to me

Hmm. That's a bit extreme, I don't think any one said that you should work purely for financial compensation, although I'm sure plenty of people do. Loads don't like their jobs but need to do them.

But clearly there is a balance, in an ideal world you work at something uou enjoy, with people you like, and financially renumerated in a way you feel comfortable with.

Financial remuneration, a reward, a payment for the work uou do is part of it. Pretending we should all work for free, that the money should be irrelevant, is nonsense. We all have bills to pay. We all have to feed, clothe and house ourselves. Money should always be part of that. Not all of it, but part of it.

And yes, having money makes life easier. There is no joy in poverty

It's not just the basics. I want a nice house, holidays, be able to give my children experiences that make them happy. I would love to retire early, I'm already saving to hopefully give my children money towards their deposits for their first homes.

Not RTFT yet so apologies if this has been said.

With mine I rewarded effort not results. They got taken out for a nice meal and a film etc. for working hard and revising sensibly. Children can have good exam days and bad exam days and I felt rewarding for results increased the pressure.

I am a successful high earner with plenty of qualifications and the single biggest lesson I learnt is sometimes you just have to get your head down and work at something even when you would rather be doing something else.

@mumtomaxwell

Well I agree with you, in relation to earning a salary as op said is not the same either, it is not a reward. Financial rewards to get people to do better might work in the short term but then everytime they need to do something what will happen? They are going to want money to do it or whats the point. Also to give rewards for higher than predicted grades, what if the grades predicted actually reflect their true ability, then what? They end up feeling thick as pig shit when actually they have done well and done their absolute best and should be proud of themselves.
People have to learn to take pride in their efforts and to get the best out of themselves for themselves it cant and shouldnt be forced.

@Bluntness100 you're right, nobody said that you 'should', but @ddraigygoch said

"I get paid for using my time to generate them profit with zero other benefit to me other than financial compensation."

'Zero other benefit' has that implication, which is what I was responding to.

I don't think adults should work for free at all.

What I'm saying is that kids aren't adults, and in the space in their life where they don't have bills to pay and dependents to support, that seems like a smart period to encourage – as much as possible – taking pleasure in effort and success.

Because – as many people here have already pointed out – intrinsic motivation is more effective than extrinsic, and if you say that a good salary is an outcome of hard work, then that'll be a side effect of someone working for the pleasure of success anyway.

Does that make more sense?

My two sons did their GCSEs last year. They were paid financial incentives which was stuck on the fridge from Xmas onwards. It DEFINITELY worked for them! (and was pretty costly for me!)

No, I don't think it does make sense, I'm sorry. Because firstly they are nearly adults, they are not small children. And secondly you can teach them both, it doesn't need to be one or the other.

The joy kids feel when they excel is real, financial incentive or not. They don't feel that joy because of money, that's the icing on the cake. Financial reward, be it for a part time job on a sat, or working and achieving your potential in exams, is part of a multi faceted approach to learning about life.

There is absolutely no reason they cannot learn that their is a joy in succeeding and there is a joy in having money in uour pocket.

ddraigygoch

I suspect you are not working harder solely for the financial payoff. You are working harder for what that financial payoff means to you and your long term goals.

I am a high earner and I have worked long hours, put up with shit management, lost weekends...
I don’t do it so my bank balance looks bigger I do it because it allows me to achieve the financial goals that matter to me e.g. pay for private school, pay off the mortgage early. So I am working for my own goals through the medium of my employment, if that makes sense.

My DSS was a nightmare at studying. Was pretty much predicted to fail most of his subjects.
We did a sliding scale, so £100 for a C in maths/English/science etc right up to £500 for an A star.

He pulled his grades up marginally (with private tutors too) and out of a possible £5k available (not to be given all in one go!!!) he actually earned £400. Which was amazing for him.

We're hearing a lot from those who were incentivised by money and achieved fantastic grades.

But what about the students who are already incentivised, work hard and still fail to achieve the grades that they wanted. Not only will they be devastated about their results, but they will also have lost out on an expected windfall. As a parent, I wouldn't want to be a part of that.

I think this is reasonable. in the adult world we are all given financial rewards according to how much effort we put in to our work (modulated also by our natural talents) - its called "wages".

my DS (also autistic) recently passed the 11+ with a series of incentives where he earned reward tokens for additional preparation work efforts and the promise of a favourite pizza restaurant meal out if he passed. he found the motivational offering was sufficient to make him choose to put in the effort, and it paid off.

the idea that kids wor just strive their best just for the sheer joy of achievement is all very well but its not many of us who do ie day to day jobs just for the sheer joy of it, is it?

Wow..someone got £9k
Someone else’s child could’ve got £5k

I feel a bit of a meanie only giving grandson £100 for his a*s and As in total

He doesn’t know it yet but he’s getting £1000 for his 17th as driving lessons

I don't approve I'm afraid. I think our young people need to dig deep and find their own motivation and invest in their future. Not expect some big reward from Mummy and Daddy every time they perform well. We are beyond bribes and deals and star charts when they are becoming adults. Surely securing a good future for themselves from their own hard work is reward enough?

Sure buy a gift afterwards or pay for them to have a great night out with their friends or a posh family dinner.

But actually not everything worthwhile in life is financially rewarded. I work for charity and know lots of people who work in the public sector - they are not well financially rewarded(sone not at all). Young people need to learn that relying on themselves and their own resources is more important than relying on bank of Mum and Dad. And why should the rich kids get all the rewards? The poor kids who do well deserve more recognition.

I think it's good that your daughter will be given added motivation, but once she gets past GCSEs and chooses to study further (if she does) I would make it absolutely clear to her that it was not anyone else's responsibility but her own to study - even if she fails, leave her to it.

My parents offered me cash to study for my GCSEs. They've always been a bit negative about my abilities, which I don't understand, as I was clever at school, grasped subjects easily, and performed well in exams. My mum decided that I was bound to fail (it was NEVER going to happen) so she offered me £20 for a C, £30 for a B, £40 for an A and £50 for an A*.

Thing is, I was working my arse off anyway, so just continued to do that. I had taken 11 GCSEs with the rest of my peers, and had also chosen to take music, art and drama, which ran after school - so 14 GCSEs in total.

I got 8 A*s, 4 As and 2 Bs .. so £620 (I think), which I didn't want to take, but she put the money into my bank account and said it would help with college (it really did).

I would 100% have got exactly the same grades without the money.

My parents were not rich whatsoever, but I honestly don't think they expected me to even get Cs. I just don't understand why though. As I said, I was clever and I worked hard. If anything I was disappointed with the As and Bs!