Reward for Good Grades

Author: Ashley

13 Apr

How much to reward good grades is a subject of much debate. But I think good grades should be rewarded one way or another. I always make sure to point it out if we are doing something because my daughter gets good grades.

For example, when we went to Disneyland in January my daughter missed 4 days of school. I made sure she knew that we couldn’t have done that if she didn’t have such great grades. I went on and on about how if she was having trouble in school we couldn’t have let her miss days to go Disneyland. I tried hard to not make it sound like Disneyland was the reward for good grades. (I certainly can’t keep up that standard!) But instead tried to show her that her good grades gave us the opportunity to go to Disneyland. It’s a subtle difference, but I think she understood.

That said, last weekend we went on an official reward outing. We went to see Disney on Ice, just my daughter and I. We got dressed up very fancy and had a night on the town just the two of us. It was a lot of fun. During the week I had taken her to Target and let her pick out a new dress. Any dress she wanted. They had all the Easter dresses on display she had plenty of extra fancy dresses to pick from. She picked this one. It’s really cute on her. I think she made an excellent choice. She also got some new shoes to go with her dress. She wanted these, which admittedly did look nicer with the dress, but I got her these ones. I had executive powers on the shoe choice because I really needed her to get something she can wear all summer. It’s one thing to buy a dress she is only going to wear twice (we have a wedding this summer). But shoes too… that’s where I draw the line.

I didn’t calculate every dollar. But I would say the whole night cost about $80. That includes, the tickets, her dress, and parking. It’s a lot, I admit. But it’s not something we do all the time. She wanted to go see that show and I felt a reward was in order for her awesome grades this year. I know she’s only in first grade, but I figure making a big deal out of good grades won’t hurt anything. Not everyone gets straight A’s, even in first grade.

pic by: Hythe Eye

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Filed under: kids

9 Responses for "Reward for Good Grades"

Miss M April 13th, 2009 at 8:21 am 1
Aww, it sounds like a wonderful night. Maybe I’m used to LA prices but that is pretty cheap for a night out. The tickets here would be $80 once you paid all the bogus ticketmaster fees. The parking would probably run another $20… I hope you two had a lovely evening together. I think these sorts of experiences are worth the money, the memories will last forever.
Craig April 13th, 2009 at 12:12 pm 2
I got rewards for good grades growing up and don’t see anything wrong with it. Helps sets a goal and motivates to do well and you get rewarded, kind of like life.
Amy April 13th, 2009 at 1:22 pm 3
My parents had a system where they would pay $20 per A, $10 per B, nothing for Cs, and then I would have to pay them $10 per D and $20 per F. I was always a perfectionist/straight-A student so I usually made bank off of this arrangement. I’m not so sure how my brother and sister fared though…

Cash was always a nice reward for me, especially when I got older.
Mrs. Money April 13th, 2009 at 4:46 pm 4
That’s so nice! I think I got $20 for straight As.
Trevor @ Financial Nut April 14th, 2009 at 9:04 am 5
I think you’re right- good grades should be rewarded. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either. You just have to let your kids know that what they’re doing is good, and though they may not understand the true rewards for doing well in school yet, you can fabricate some yourself.

Sounds like you guys had a great time!
RC@Thinkyourwaytowealth April 14th, 2009 at 10:01 pm 6
I don’t have a problem with rewarding for good grades. My kids don’t actually get report cards yet, but I will probably implement some kind of reward system. Some people may see it as a bribe, but let’s face it-people who do really good work in their career generally get rewarded, so it is not so terribly different than what happens in the working world, in some way.
R. May April 16th, 2009 at 9:11 am 7
lol. I do not reward for grades. My daughter knows whats expected and that that. The reward is she is allowed to have a life outside of school work. She wants to slack off, she will find herself doing nothing until the grades are back up.

But we’ve never had a problem, because she knows the expectations.
And I don’t care much about the grade itself - I care that she does the best she’s capable of. I’d rather her get a C in Calculas then an A in an easier math class.
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Shirleta Williams January 9th, 2010 at 8:47 pm 9
I reward my 4th grade daughter for every grade that is a 95 or higher with a very small reward . Since she made the A Honor Roll for the 2nd time this school term, her reward is a little more for the report card. I let her choose, anything that costs no more than $15. It could be a new sweater, movies with a friend or several smaller items. I don’t want it to be all about the rewardS so I keep the cost down. She loves school and enjoy learning new things. She hates being out of school if she is ill, so I know she is taken school seriously. The reward is just a smalll token to say, ‘We are proud of you. Keep up the good work’ we also verbally relay this message. We want her to always try her best, and never take anything less if she can strive a little harder and get the ‘A’.