Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi everybody. I'm Melissa, welcome back to CloudMom.com, talking today about money and
grades. Should you pay your children money, cash money, when they get good grades and
what are sort of the effects of doing this. And so anyway, my children, they're between
two and nine years old, we don't yet have formal grades in school. And I'm sure that's
sort of coming. Up until now, I haven't given any sort of cash money for a good report card.
I don't even know if they know they get report cards actually. But I think that, personally
speaking, when grades do come in to the picture for us, I'm actually going to try not to give
cash money when they get a good grade. And here's my thinking, and we can check back
with each other in a few years and see if I've been able to maintain this. My thinking
is that I feel myself such an incredible sense of satisfaction when I care about something,
when I work *** something, and when I really try to do my best. And I want my children
to learn how incredibly satisfying that is and how much it means to really put everything
you've had into something. And I also want them to experience the pure joy and pleasure
of learning. Like how fascinating things can be, and how interesting the world is, and
how much enjoyment we can get from learning new things and getting really into a certain
topic and really sort of trying *** a project and those sort of things. So for me,
I worry that if grades are sort of valued by what you get when you get an A, you get
$5, that it will sort of take away from the other more deeply personal things that can
go on when we all work in life. So that's sort of one way which I think about it. And
here's the sort of second thing I'm thinking. I feel as an adult that you can often work
really *** something and have it not work out. For example, you could go and produce
350 videos and put up a site and kill yourself, just kidding, without not exactly knowing
directly what will be the fruits of your labor, especially money. Now I'm joking, but seriously
there are many things that are so valuable in life, that you've to work so hard for it,
that do not come with any sort of monetary reward. So that's another thing and I think
that, that doesn't mean that they're not valuable. So anyway, I think that I'm going to try not
to reward my children for good grades with cash money because of the reasons I just stated.
However, we all know that we live in a society where children are very sort of intrigued
by material things, they wanna try to buy things, whether it be new games, or new programs,
or a new software. And so, it could be the case in certain situations when a child is
struggling and can't find that inner motivation that it could be a good idea to have an incentive
of a special prize or a toy at the end of the road. So moms who feel that way, I would
love to hear from you. What is your approach to the whole reward thing when it comes to
grades, especially money? How are you going about this. Please weigh in on my site. I
would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for watching my videos and see you next
time on CloudMom.com.