To offer DD money for additional reading and maths

[Motivatingtostudy]

I told DD13 that I will give her £10 per book she finishes and £1 if she does 30min of maths per day; she seems very motivated. In addition to her school work.

She does her school homework and tutor work but apart from that doesn’t do much and is a bit behind a school. She doesn’t really get pocket money but we buy what she needs/ask within reason and she has money from ocasional pet sitting.

I have always been of the idea that you study and help in the house because it is your responsibility and you don’t get paid for it; but I am hoping that she will develop a love of learning and reading with this additional motivation.

Op whatever it takes, if she starts to get into it good habits does it matter.

My dd has a maths tutor and works hard, I give her rewards because of this.

If you can afford it then do it.

We paid out for each gcse result because I knew it would make our DC more likely to study.

How are you going to know she has actually read the books though?

I don't blame you. I'd do the same.

Eldest DC is capable but lazy. I fully intend to offer financial incentives for gcse results when the time comes.

It's not a bad thing to do, but I think you're being a bit unrealistic. If she hasn't developed a love for it by now, it's doubtful she will start. It will probably just be transactional, but it still gets the job done.

Also, if she does all her work and tutor work, how come she is a bit behind? Does she actually struggle academically, on which case she'd need more targeted support?

If it works, fine.

But IMHO the ideal would be that the reward is the knowledge/results of the studying.

Eg, you can pay a child to brush their teeth.
But isn't a better lesson for them to learn that brushing teeth = no fillings? 🤷‍♀️

I’m always a bit on the fence about stuff like this. I’m a pragmatic person so part of me says ‘if it works, it works’, but equally I can’t deny that it feels wrong. There’s a book by Michael Sandel called ‘What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets’ which talks about the corrupting influence of paying people to study / learn etc. it’s interesting.

I know I won’t really have to grapple with this when our kids are older as my OH is dead against it. Given I’m on the fence I don’t think I’ll get into a debate about it.

My parents used to pay me £5 to go to school from year 10 onwards as I just wasn’t interested (keen learning and loved reading just hated the environment).
It worked and I stayed the course, got good GCSEs etc. Have a post grad now.

Yes we’d all love the intrinsic motivation to be enough but where it isn’t, a little external motivation is fair play. If it works, it works!

I love reading but no I would not do this I just leave my child to read when they want, if someone made a fuss of me reading it would put me off for life so wouldn't do that to anyone else

Thank you all. I am going to keep it up and see how it goes.

I wouldn't do this. I don't think it's helpful in the real world. Doing things you don't like is a fact of life, growing up to expect financial rewards for doing them isn't great.

We do similar and now its become am ingrained habit and we just now get dc a half present/activity or something special on holiday.

Bribery absolutely has it place at times.

I think some children are self motivated others need an extra incentive.

I don't think you can pay someone to enjoy reading

To be fair.. isn't that why most people work? Because they get paid for it?

Well it is a life lesson...do well in education and you get the reward of a better paid job (hopefully).

In fact a lot of big companies will pay you to study and then give you a bonus based on successful results so it is showing her how it is in the real world.

I don’t see it as a bad thing. Fortunately my kids are self motivators and I am trying to stop my 15yr old DD from studying constantly but some kids are capable but lazy and I don’t see a problem in a bit of encouragement.

I do things similar…..they use apps to learn French etc and when they get a certain amount of points they get a reward. It’s a high number and will take them months, but it’s a significant award (£50).
with my youngest, we do a few pages of various work books each morning and when they have completed the full book, they get a small toy.
nit worjs, we can award it and they are all doing well at school , so it works fir us.
the oldest (14) now studies independently and wants to do well, so I dint need to do it with her now, but when she dies we’ll in exams, she chooses a restaurant for a family meal.

Well yeah, but there's plenty of other stuff in life we have to do that we don't like, like cleaning the house. We don't get paid for all of it.

How will you know she has read the book? Are you going to do something like book club so she can discuss the book with you.

I used to volunteer at Primary school and one thing I helped with was Book Review where I would sit down with a child and listen to their review of a book they had read. It was quite obvious some of them had just read the blurb on the back (or had watched the film!) I even had one child tell me about the tiger in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, I did tell them the clue was in the title

My dc both have reading as an option when they go to bed - well, it's one of two options: read or sleep. They have no devices in their rooms so if they don't want to sleep, or can't, or naturally don't feel tired until X time after bedtime, then they read. It's helped them consume so many books.