Do most of people promise their children cash payments in exchange for good GCSE grades?

[Theodoraalways]

My son has been coming home from school recently talking about his friends getting £100 payment for each grade 9 in their upcoming GCSE….not only that, he has been harassing me relentlessly about me paying him, too. The only response I get from him when asking why should anyone pay their child to do well in school at any time is that “everyone does it!” and so should I!
He has predicted 9’s in all his 10 GCSE subjects and has been found to be exceptionally talented in all his subjects by his teachers since he started secondary grammar school. That is what makes it even more shocking for me that someone so highly intelligent (he has chosen to test his IQ through school in Year 8 and the result was 162) could be putting monetary value to his efforts in school.
He is our only child and has been loved and looked after unlike many unfortunate children I read about. We do go on holiday every summer to Italy or Greece for 5-6 weeks, stay in luxury accommodation (villa or apartment), he has several hobbies outside school which we pay for, we always bought him masses of presents for his birthdays and Christmas, lots of books throughout the year, we try to install decent human values into him, we saved nicely for him into his Child Trust Fund account, he has never wanted for anything - we bought him most of the things he asked for over the years….
Am I wrong in thinking that no child should be promised money in order to succeed in school? I cry when I read some young people saying to their parents they do not wish any money for their grades, it is their achievement that motivates them…Am I wrong in thinking we should be celebrating his achievements by buying him a present and going out for a meal, rather than be putting a price for his grades in advance?

I am going to celebrate my DC's grades by giving him some money.
He's worked really hard and still looking at grades of 4-6. Those grades will not be a reward in itself when he has to listen to all those kids with their 9s.
I am not paying him per grade but I am aware he is skint as he only has a very part time job, and he would probably prefer money to spend with his friends than a family night out.
And in fact, we might even do a family night out as well!

Nope - it benefits me, my child succeeds and gains independence. Also, we are successful self-employed business owners - my child has decided to save the "bribes" for investment purposes (and a gaming PC :) - so very similar to what we used our employment bonuses for.

If your reinvesting in your company at start up stage and taking minimal salary and dividends, then you need savings enough to live on (if independent).

Nope, we spent our money on buying him revision/study books, a desk to work on, a decent laptop, etc. to give him the environment to do his best, i.e. ensure he had no reason not to study and revise properly.

My own parents offered me money, but it didn't work because I had no resources, trying to work on the end of my bed (no clear surface at all except the kitchen table!), no books etc besides what school provided, obviously no internet in those days but I didn't have a computer either when most others had one (80's), etc. I was lucky to find paper and pens to do work! Buying myself a desk was the first thing I did when I left school (with barely any qualifications) and got my first job, closely followed by enrolling at the local college for evening classes, buying lots of stationery, nice pens, coloured pens, nice note books, files, etc., and went on to get my O Levels, then A levels and then chartered accountancy qualifications, all self-funded from my wages.

I've spent my entire adult life wishing my parents had used the money "earmarked" for passing exams to actually give me the "tools" I needed to pass them. I had to qualify as a professional the hard way by giving up evenings and weekends to study, when it would have been so much easier to have done it properly when in full time education!

@May09Bump

If your reinvesting in your company at start up stage and taking minimal salary and dividends, then you need savings enough to live on (if independent).

Not necessarily. You can live on credit cards and/or loans for a short time. It's what I did when I gave up work to have DS and DH started his own business at the same time.

We got a couple of interest free credit cards, both with a few thousand credit limit, and put as much as we could on them, including all shopping, fuel, car repair bills, clothes, toys, pram, cot, etc. He used his last pay cheque to buy a computer and printer to run the business. We'd actively seek out shops that took credit cards and swerve the ones that didn't because we literally didn't have the cash to buy things from cash only shops. Same with tradesmen - pretty hard back then to find, say a plumber who'd accept credit cards! This was 20 years ago, when there were still lots of shops and other businesses that didn't take cards!

He took on several clients to do cheap/basic work just to fill his days and bring in enough money to pay the mortgage and utilities. Any excess stayed in the business to buy software, pay for advertising/marketing, save up for a laptop so he could work at clients' premises, etc. As the months went by, the investment meant he got better clients, more lucrative work, etc.

All the while, we were getting closer to the credit limits on the credit cards. In the end, it worked out, his business was generating a decent enough "profit" to start paying him a proper wage, which we used to clear down the credit cards before interest started.

All that was without savings - it was living from hand to mouth, getting stressed at the growing credit card statements, getting stressed when a client didn't pay his bill on time (needed to pay the mortgage that month), etc.

I've seen the 0% credit card route fail with long term credit damage and your last paragraph isn't what I want my kids to go though, experienced a bit of that - rather them have savings if possible.

This is the first time I have ever heard of this. My eldest is yr11. I will not be giving her any money for getting a pass.

Well, of course, having savings is the optimum solution in a perfect world, but if you don't have savings, then you have to take risks - it's what business is all about. Far better to take a risk and reap rewards in the future, than to stay in a dead end, miserable, low paid job where you'd never be able to save enough to start a business risk-free unless you were expecting an inheritance or lottery win.

In fact, knowing you don't have a "fall back" option is one hell of an incentive/motivator to get "out there" and ensure your business doesn't fail - my OH went far beyond his "safe zone" to get clients, including cold-calling businesses in person and by phone, when he's a naturally shy/anti-social kind of person who suffers anxiety, sweaty palms, palpitations etc when meeting people. Sometime, you have to do what you have to do for the greater good!

I've had lots of clients who've started a business based on large reserves of savings, lump sums from redundancy, inheritance, pensions, etc., and lost the lot because money that's readily available is also readily/easily spent (wasted) on vanity costs rather than the bare essentials.

Agree it adds to the hunger - we started out with nothing prior to employment. But lack of stress also can give freedom of mind to see different or more profitable routes. Different routes for different people or risk levels. We've been down all the paths.

Yes not the kind of financial planning I would be advocating for my DC. I would be suggesting to pick either get an interim job or get pregnant not start a business at same time as having a DC.
I did GCSEs in the 80s so for you to be doing O-levels you must have taken them and then retaken before 1986 and I can tell you that in my school people didn't really use bought revision guides at all even those with teachers as parents and in the early 80's plenty of people didn't have a computer so your recollection of that era does not reflect mine. I did most of my revision on my bedroom floor as that was where I was comfortable.

"Am I wrong in thinking that no child should be promised money in order to succeed in school?"

Yes, you are wrong @Theodoraalways .

If other parents want to do this, it's up to them. You don't have to do the same.Just manage your son's expectations, and remind him of his other privileges.

I did reward my children, but I suggested they didn't tell their friends, on the grounds that not everyone would have the same. (Hopefully your son knows not to boast about his 6 week holidays and Child Trust Fund too 🙂).