AIBU to off DD financial reward for GCSE grades?

[BlackBean2023]

DD is going into y11 and last year I made a deal with her- every 9 gets £200, every 8 £100 and every 7 £50 (she's at a selective school- straight 7-9s not unusual). I've doubled the amount as a motivator for Spanish and chemistry where she's not trying and currently predicted a 5.

She told my SIL yesterday who said it's out of order but would tell me why she thought so. AIBU? I can afford it and DD is motivated by money. The grades are reasonable and obtainable for her.

SIL doesn't have teenagers so it's not a cousin comparison thing..

I don’t know. DS is behind on his writing and SPaG (he’s 8) so we’ve spent all summer doing a couple of pages of workbooks most days. We’ve awarded him a star for each page and will convert that to money for his savings at the end of the summer - is that very different? We figured it was like paying him a wage… I suppose it does reward motivation but I’m not sure it’s teaching him intrinsic motivation.

Exactly this

Absolutely. No different to how bonuses at work would apply- you don't get rewarded for trying hard in the real world; you get rewarded for results.

But if you paid more to your younger child, she’d be given more for a grade 7 than your older would be for her grade 9, which doesn’t feel fair.

The comparisons with getting paid to do a job well aren't correct. If you do a job well, the business is making more money from you, so they reward you for that. This isn't true for a parent. The parent gets nothing from a child doing well. So it's not the same. 'Hard work pays off' in this case would be their good grades. That's the reward for this. So paying on top is bribery - which actually is fine, if that's what works for your kid- you know them best, but own it!

This has been an interesting thread. I think for my own dcs, I will be doing my damdest before the 11th hour to avoid this bribery route, but probably would if needs must, and I/they hadn't managed to install the intrinsic motivation by then.

A poster upthread has detailed really well how to do this. It's getting them to think about the whys. So 'you must be so proud of yourself' rather than 'I'm so proud of you' etc. I also know what it's not via an anecdote. Dd started playing football at around 5, the girls were having a whale of a time, not a blooming clue what they were doing, very sweet. One girl got a goal, they were so happy, the dad said to her 'that's a pound for you'. She looked a bit clueless. Just why?!? She was already happy with the goal. Reduced to what tangible she could get out of it in an instant.

@Noicant I think linking reward with effort is not a bad thing. I think when kids get to a-levels the importance of being able to achieve the grades they require for their long term plans becomes clearer to them whether it’s uni, an apprenticeship etc. Younger than that and they don’t always fully understand why it’s important.

The issue is that results aren’t purely down to effort. I breezed through 11 GCSEs with only As & As (back when 1 star was the maximum) but I had a sibling who just wasn’t the same academically. If they put in the same amount of effort I would get an A and they would get a B/C, so the kids could put in the same amount of effort but one is rewarded and one is punished.

Not a fan of the message.
but your child, your choice. And I’m not in this situation (yet) so who knows how we will handle this.

but it just doesn’t chime with my values and my upbringing.

Doing my best, trying at school etc. was simply my “job”, what was expected of me. I was expected to try, to strive. But actual success was not necessarily required.

(I was fairly ambitious and quite academic, so this worked out quite well. I’m glad my parents didn’t pressure me with financial incentives.)

In 1996 I got £20 for an A, £10 for a B and £5 for a C, not sure how that compares inflation wise but most of my friends were offered similar...came out with nearly £200 so I was happy!

That’s nice in theory but all kids are different. It wasn’t harped on about, just mentioned at the start. Also had to take away his phone at times, tell him he couldn’t go to the gym, watch him roll his eyes as I booked theatre productions for all his English texts. By any means necessary and some kids can make it hard. It’s not crap parenting, not all kids (boys especially) are perfect and see the point of exams at the time. Boys don’t want to be seen as "neeks" and pretend to each other they don’t work and don’t care. I had to override that narrative by any means possible. It didn’t cost me a fortune but he just about did well enough to stay on if he chooses. I also made it clear that no matter what the results we would find a way forward that works. He didn’t get all 9’s but he did better than even he expected and some pocket money afterwards is not a problem.

It depends on if your DD is coping with exams and the workload, if she is and there’s not extra pressure added into the mix which would send her over the edge with stress then a financial reward isn’t wrong. But if she’s already struggling then there shouldn’t be a reward contingent on what grades she receives.

Not something I would do. I’d rather my child is motivated by achievement and doing well rather than money. If they did well though after results I’d probably buy them a one off present but I wouldn’t tell them beforehand.

I wouldn’t do this. My reason is because I learnt by making this mistake myself when my child was young. He would always cry at drop off, so I told him that if he didn’t cry I would buy him a magazine. Sadly, he was still upset and cried, which meant he felt doubly upset because on top of being annoyed with himself he also lost the magazine. I don’t feel proud of this but please keep it in mind.

I would suggest setting her targets to guide her eg. Ask for 10 revision cards written per day and test her at the end of the day. No payment unless it is a nice surprise on results day.

Our eldest is very motivated by money, we gave £50 for every target grade met, doubled it for those exceeded. It really worked for him.

If your daughter is lazy I’d sit down and have a serious chat with her about what the laziness will result in. Namely poorer grades and not representing herself as well as she could on results day.

and then pretty much leave her to it, other than the obvious encouragement to study. She has to want to do it for herself.

she also needs to learn the lesson that if you don’t work hard you don’t get results.

on life she will get a paid job but she’ll lose it to redundancy if she is the one in the company who does the bare minimum whilst others try hard, she will be the unfavoured colleague for the same reason if she’s lazy

let her learn early on that trying your best is the best reward (irrelevant of the grade this gets). Otherwise you set up a system where you only try hard for money. The achievement in itself is what she be the motivator, the ability to progress to anything she likes.

you are doing her a dis service long term by giving her money, particularly such high amounts - she sounds quite spoilt.

Also, if I can add, I think things like GCSE results are too important to ‘teach them a lesson’. It’s really in their best interests to just get as good results as they’re capable of, however that happens, rather than using it as a learning opportunity by making them deviate from their education path by retaking.

It never occurred to me to do this with mine. My youngest got all grade 9-7 with no revision, my eldest dropped out of school and didn't get any at the correct age. We just went out for a meal to celebrate results/efforts, eg if the eldest managed to sit an exam and not walk out.
Although, I do remember my mum did something like this when I did my exams. She didn't tell me beforehand but afterwards gave me something like £250. I felt embarrassed and undeserving (I had done fairly well but not amazingly, and hadn't put much effort in).

We had financial reward for grades, I can’t remember the exact amount. He worked hard at school and he had a paper round from 13.

With A levels I told DS if he got all A grades I would buy him a car, I had to buy him a car.

The issue is what to do if she works really hard but then doesn’t achieve the grades (really hard paper etc). I much prefer rewarding the work rather than the final achievement. I’d be more inclined to say that if she works really hard in every subject she will get £X.

Whilst i am against bribery, I would never tell someone IRL their method was wrong, unless asked. Your sil needs to keep her mouth shut.

If OP staggers the amount down to say a grade 6, it’s unlikely she won’t get anything, there will be some kind of financial reward. It may not be at the top end of what she could’ve got but that’s a life lesson isn’t it? We talk about resilience, I think this is a good opportunity for that. Life isn’t fair essentially, best they learn it now in ways.

A year ago I'd have said it's up to you, you know your own child best.

Having had DD just go through Y11 I think there is too much of a lottery element to it. Those exams are so small compared to 2 years' study and there's a huge number of variables like having a cold, or sitting next to someone with a reader who is reading out long passages for 20 mins, or a question coming up that you haven't covered. For most kids, most of the time, there's an element of luck in the difference between a 7 and a 9 and incentivising the 9s so heavily is failing to acknowledge what is and isn't in their control.

YANBU.

You know your child best so if money will motivate her to do the best she possibly can, that's what you should do.

I don't know why people say GCSEs don't matter - they do. It might not impact on university choices, or even what she can sit at A level (although it did for me - anything below an A and my school said no to sitting it at A level!) but it will impact on how teachers look at her and how much teachers will push her if she stays at the same school (i.e. if she gets a 9 in English Literature, and carries it on for A level, at A level her teacher will expect her to do well and thus push her harder. If she gets 6s, teachers won't push her as hard as she'll have set a benchmark for herself).

Also from a self confidence point of view - teenagers can be incredibly critical on themselves. If she does well that will boost her confidence going into A levels and beyond.

And, let's be honest, there is no price on supporting your child to be successful - if you can afford it and it'll work for her, then go for it.

I wouldn't. I gave my dc money for working hard, not for results. But if you think your dc would be motivated by cash, then go for it.

I've been a teacher in selective schools over ten years and it's never the top students who have this.

Think about it logically. Let's say it's £150 for an 8, £200 for a 9.

It takes hours of extra effort and revision to get a 9. Would any intelligent kid, purely motivated by money, bother with all those extra hours for £50?! No. They'd mow someone's lawn a couple of times and get that money way quicker.

Top students (I'm talking the mostly 9s types) are motivated by pride, competitiveness, maybe even a sort of intellectual snobbery/arrogance. Not necessarily the best attributes but if, as a parent, you care more about results than anything else, that is the way to go about it.

I wouldn't do it. The reason for that is that dc1 will not get those 8/9s no matter how hard he works. 6/7s are really good for him.

Dc2 finds exams easier and doesn't get stressed in the exam hall so the same amount of work yields much higher grades.

Dc1's results are not worth less than dc2's, I'm proud of them both

Plenty of parents do this and it’s none of sil business. If she had kids I’d understand a bit more as you are making life difficult for those parents who can’t afford to do this! Generally I think sometimes it’s the people who have not met expectations at some point who develop better motivation and GCSEs are not really that important and perhaps a good point to allow that to happen. But it might be with a bit more maturity she’ll Do it herself for a level onwards