Yes, $500 for an A, $250 for a B+ Kids are in middle school. The rate would be higher for high school. No, would not do this once they enter college.
Man, I'd love to be your kid in middle school ;)
Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
11–20 of 26 posts
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#12My mom took to me a place that gave out a free cookie for every A. That was pretty good motivation for me.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#13Some years I got paid for As ($1-5) and less for Bs. Anything less than a B meant you got nothing for the whole report card. Other years I didn't get paid. I think for my kids we won't pay them for grades, but might celebrate with a nice/ favorite dinner or something.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#14When I was a kid, I didn’t have an allowance, but negotiated with my parents to get $1 * Grade Level * A per report card.
Which, in retrospect wasn’t much per hour, but was a sufficient motivator to do well in the classes I didn’t care for.
When my grades started to matter for university admissions, they doubled the rate per A in grade 10 and tripled it in grades 11 and 12.
They made me save half and allowed me to spend half, which was a good lesson as it helped me pay cover a few unexpected expenses during undergrad.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#15Some years I got paid for As ($1-5) and less for Bs. Anything less than a B meant you got nothing for the whole report card. Other years I didn't get paid. I think for my kids we won't pay them for grades, but might celebrate with a nice/ favorite dinner or something.
I think the nice dinner or event is a great idea, wish we had done that. Events are more memorable than cash. I can hear it now, "if I get a 3.5 I will get to go to Chuck E Cheese"
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#16Yes, $500 for an A, $250 for a B+ Kids are in middle school. The rate would be higher for high school. No, would not do this once they enter college.
Please adopt me.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#17Yes! Children love money, and it helps them feel like their efforts have a tangible reward that isn't "increase your chances of getting into Harvard 2% in 10 years". It's incredibly cheap for a working age adult, relatively speaking to the outcomes it can later produce - even $100 per A per semester is a huge motivator for a child who might otherwise reason that they can achieve their goals well enough with a couple of B's here and there. This is definitely what I reasoned when I was younger, and I would have loved a short term counterbalancing reward to give me more reason to push myself.
I also pay my wife, who is currently working through college. At her level the going rate we've negotiated is $250 for an A in her hardest, technical class, with exponential dropoff for lower grades (to simulate how small initial advantages lead to huge compounding effects in the business world). She's gotten the full amount almost every time so far :) but more importantly, she has chosen to put more of her limited pool of effort into those classes and less effort into classes neither of us really care about.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#18I guess this is somewhat an american thing. Coming from southern europe, for me is a thing of everyone doing their role: Mom cooks, dad works, and childs approve everything with good grades.
For specific achievals (like really good performance) sometimes a prize has been discussed as an additional motivator, which has worked very well in the past.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#19No, we never did and never will. We encourage, praise and help but never put a value (money or other) on good grades.
Re: Ask HN: Do you pay your children for good grades?
#20I would not pay my kids for grades, my parents kinda did this and in retrospective I came to conclusion it was not good incentive.
I personally don't like grades system, in my simplistic opinion it tought me to adjust to school system- I was memorising just enough to get a grade, then I was forgetting this because the only thing I cared for was grade and not actual skill or knowledge. I had to occasionally memorise/relearn stuff again. I also paid attention to what triggers my teachers so they notice me as good student, so I could occasionally get good grades just because they recognised me. This worked even at university. Now that I'm older I am 100% convinced how wrong this was. Instead of picking up skills and knowledge I was learning to game the system. I don't want my kids to be like me.
I send my kids to school where there are no literate grades until they are 13 (first 6 years). First three years they do 'work with help materials' and that's how they learn to read, write, count and some math basics. They learn this to acquire skill, not to get grades. Next 3 years they are continuing that pattern + they do projects in teams (where projects are very open-ended). This is the time where there is work they have to do, those tasks are marked as yellow. There are optional tasks marked orange and red but only kids who want them pick them up. During first 6 years teachers pay very close attention to what kids pick up and what do they avoid, so it's not possible to simply not do math just because you don't like it, or not write essays, teachers try to understand what are the blockers that make students to avoid picking these up and work with students to unblock them. Last 2 years they are introduced to grades because that's what highschool system here is based on (though, if I have good health and will be able to work I will send them to purely project-based highschool).