By Jean Illsley Clarke Ph.D.

How do you encourage children to achieve in school? Some parents attempt to motivate children to get good grades by offering rewards. Some bribe, some scold, some punish, some structure time for study, some pay for grades. Some do all of the above.

The Browns pay for grades. They tell their children that school is children’s work and people get paid for work so their children get paid for going to school. How much they get paid depends on the quality of work they do as reflected by their grades. How much? An F gets nothing. A D rates $1; a C is $4; a, B is $7 and an A is $10. The Browns want to teach their children a good work ethic. No work, no pay. The children are in a well-run school with high academic standards and seem to be learning well. If you were to pay for grades, how much would you pay?

The Williams give allowances but they do not pay for grades. They believe that grades are not necessarily an accurate indicator of children’s achievement. They have read study reports that say a teacher may grade the same essay differently after a three-month interval and that different teachers would not necessarily assign the same grade to that essay. The Williams believe that success depends on effort, so they focus on their child’s performance rather than on grades. They let their child know that they are on his team, that they support his interests and his learning in his own way. They focus on effort by asking about report cards in this way.

Start with the highest grade.

“I see you got an A in history. How did you do that?”

“History is easy. And I did an extra credit project.”

“Great. I’m glad you are learning the value of doing more than is required. I see you got a B+ in Language Arts. How did you do that?”

“I turned in all of my papers on time.”

“Good work. I see you are learning the importance of meeting deadlines. I see you got a C in math. How did you do that?”

“I like math but I missed on a couple of tests because I hadn’t studied enough.”

“I’m glad you like math. Do you have any plans about keeping up on it?”

“Science is hard for me. I study it more than any other subject and I still don’t get it. Some days I want to skip it.”

“Congratulations on sticking with it. Of course you need to do better. Sometimes we learn the most about ourselves from the subjects that are the hardest. Do you want some help from me, or do you need a tutor? I’m willing to help you get what you need.”

“No, I’ll try it by myself for a while longer.”

“All right. I trust you. If you change your mind, let me know. We’ll check at your next test time to see if you need more help.”

“I’m glad we talked about your report card. I’m glad you are my kid.”

Many of the participants in the Overindulgence Research Studies said that they were overindulged as children by being given money. Some said, “What I got was money. What I really wanted was them.”

The Green parents use report cards as a way to support their son and to strengthen their connection with him.

If you want to try this method of being on your child’s team, avoid saying, “What happened?” That can let the child blame the teacher or circumstances. “How did you do that?” encourages the child to be responsible for his own life. Think through your values before you pay for grades. We teach family values more by what we do than by what we say.

(Jean Illsley Clarke Ph.D. can be reached at jiconsults@aol.com.)