AIBU to think rewarding children for high grades is unfair?

[TheLivelyCat]

To think its wrong to reward children for high grades.

I've meet a few people and have seen online people who reward their child if they get top Grades in education. ie if you get a certain mark/grade parents will reward them with a trip, car, or something else big.
As a parent with 2 DDs one working above expected standards and one working towards expected standards, I feel this is unfair as my children who is working towards expected standards is probably working 2x as hard as my child who it naturally comes easier too.

I have not done it but am contemplating it! My son is driven by money. All his teachers say if he put more work in he is capable of A’s in GCSEs I am so tempted to offer money reward but it just does not sit right as didn’t need to do it with DD🙈 as I didn’t need too.

In a way. We don’t really choose our traits and aptitudes (even traits like conscientiousness / effort that are usually seen as fair to reward).

But our society rewards mainly by results, and that’s probably for the best (tends to be seen as fair, relative to egalitarian or hereditarian alternatives, and also incentivises productivity and risk taking).

So in moderation with children I think it’s fine or healthy: some children thrive on it, and it reflects how society works.

I wouldn’t do it if I had children of very different abilities, or if seemed to be sapping their love of the subject / the effort.

Can we not celebrate success anymore?! JFC!

I like to reward if someone has tried their best, even if the grades are not top notch, they can get a reward for effort.

It's encouraging to recognise someone has done as well as they are able.

They were probably always going to do that - they would have had to book it in advance surely?

Silly idea to make things contingent that aren’t really.

My ds is very academic but just lazy. The difference between an A and A* is motivated by money for him. So we reward him for that. Not sure what business it is of anyone else’s ??

Of course you can!

I mean my dd got a meal out on GCSE results day to celebrate with just me and her dad and no younger siblings. It was already booked but if she had been very disappointed we wouldn’t have gone - but that would have been down to her and her perception of success.

I used to reward my eldest for passing reading quizzes. Now I reward them for just picking up a book every day. My youngest was picking up on it and giving her teacher hell for not not letting her quiz enough 🫠

I would too.

I have a child who got rewarded for high GCSE grades, and for the life of me I can't see why you think it's unfair or why you think it impacts you in any way.

He is extremely bright and knew he'd get decent marks with no effort at all, but incentivising him financially to push himself a bit meant he got great marks rather than just good ones. He got no money at all for anything below a 7, then more for an 8 and a really decent amount for a 9. How is that unfair? And for what it's worth, he's now at uni doing well and fully understands that he needs to work on his own accord to achieve his degree...

I would reward effort rather than attainment, personally. Speaking as someone who was labelled as 'Gifted and Talented' at school and being the best/top of the class was considered my benchline and success was always expected, and speaking as that same someone who taken until 33 to learn that it's ok to not be perfect/the best as long as your tried your hardest. It was such a damaging thing to have learnt as a child and rewarding top grades just undermines the importance of doing the best you can at any given time 🤷🏼‍♀️

Yes - it’s upto a child’s parent what they wish to do as is everything else eg what time they go to bed, what they eat etc, I appreciate if you have more than one child it can get tricky/complicated

Gosh some of your kids were lucky! I got absolutely nothing for passing my exams and A levels. Obtaining them through hard work was the reward and the pride that I had good results.

I scraped art A Level but aced my BTec - would I have got a death-trap rusty old banger? Maybe my clever sister would’ve given me a lift 🤣
Your choice of course but oh the pressure!

This is going back a bit, but in the lead up to my GCSEs, my parents said they’d give me £15 for every A*, £10 for every A, £5 for every B, nothing for Cs and they’d take money off for any Ds.

Had I found exams really difficult, I’ve no doubt they’d have rewarded Cs and possibly Ds.

Hope you did well with Maths to check their working out 🤣

I have no issue with this, rewarding for effort,

However when people reward only if you get high grades it seem unfair to me, as well as putting a lot of pressure onto their children.
As in my opinion yes education is of value and can open some doors, its not everything in life, there are also lots of highly skilled, happy, successful people in the world who didn't get good grades or a good education.

Surely, you would reward them for achieving "high" grades each according to their own standards. Not all the same grades if they are at different levels...

i would have thought each parent who knows their own child is best placed to choose whichever motivation system will work best for their child.
rather obviously, in your situation, rewarding grades won’t work.
so you don’t do it.
a bit silly to think that that would apply to other parents though.

It's definitely a better way than just rewarding high grades.
Many parents, like yourself, have kids with varying degrees of success at school, it would be unfair to just reward the high achiever if the other daughter was doing her best.

Surely it depends on the child.

Some may need the additional reward of cash per grade for motivation.

We didn’t offer that because they were already predicted good grades and were working but we did celebrate end of exams.

If they weren’t reaching their potential I’d bribe if needed!

We were chatting about this at work last week. My colleague went to a school
in a very poor socio-economic area. The school actually paid the students who did well in their GCSEs (and by ‘well’ he meant passing). I think he said he was given £200 and a voucher for something too. It can be a great motivator, but it’s not something we ever considered. My kids certainly had friends who were promised £100 for every grade 9, for example.

Agree.

Life is unfair. That’s what my therapist once told me.

When you learn to accept that the world is fundamentally unfair (eg is it fair that your children were born here while others are born in slums?) then you stop getting angry or upset about how other people are living.

Is that a problem? It got them a load of decent grade 8s in 2 instruments each, and in ballet.

Since posting, I have remembered that DD2 was offered a “bribe” if she achieved a certain number of points by her chosen university. The bursary/bribe was £4K paid in the February of her 1st year and at the time it covered her 2nd year accommodation costs. That was an added incentive for her.

At the end of the day, I know my daughters and what motivates them. Both are now doing well in their chosen careers, understanding the importance of hard work. If that’s transactional, I don’t care. All through the parenting journey I’ve had bystanders criticise me. After 26 years, I couldn’t care less.