Education is a gateway to success. It’s why parents in New York hire consultants for preschool. It’s why young kids in China are writing resumes. And it’s why American high school students fret over competitive college admissions.
Parents know that the better the education, the greater their child’s success may be. They also know that numerous achievements, like a high GPA, can help secure that success. Some colleges even value a high GPA above all other application components.
The importance of good grades can put a lot of pressure on students and their parents. Many families turn to monetary incentives like paying their kids to make those grades. (Or, like in recent news, there are the notorious and wealthy few willing to bribe administrators for admissions.)
Offering a child fifty dollars in exchange for an excellent report card seems like a small price to pay for a child’s entire future.
But it’s not that simple. Paying for grades isn’t just a harmless means to an end that puts a little fun money in our kids’ pockets.
Paying for grades actually robs kids of much greater wealth. It doesn’t matter whether your child is headed for preschool, community college, or the Ivy League: True, long-lasting success requires skills that money can’t buy.
Our Ultimate Guide to Motivating Your Kids takes money out of motivation with effective, long-term strategies. Start using them today!
Here are 6 reasons why paying for grades isn’t the best way to set our kids up for life-long success:
1. Payment Breeds Entitlement
You may be thinking that paying for grades, overall, can’t be that bad. If it gets your kids into college, where is the real harm? Maybe YOU were paid for grades and it worked well for you. Now, you want to pay it forward and invest in your children’s careers with a small down payment. Plus, young adults get paid for their work when they finally land jobs–so what’s the difference?
Before we continue, let me ask…Do you pay your kids to clean their rooms? To take out the trash? To take time out of playing to sit on the potty?
Paying our kids for something that is a necessary part of life–including studying–is a dangerous game.
Are you paid for tidying up the house? Making dinner for the family? Keeping the maintenance up on your car? Organizing the chauffeur schedule to get all the kids to their practices on time?
The truth is, certain things need to be done without compensation. Anything else is a path towards entitlement.
The newest generations of young adults–Millennials and Gen Z-ers–are getting a bad rap. They have great skills, but some expect a lot in return. In many ways, this is good–like the fact that they’re forcing companies to create more balanced work-life environments. But in other ways, expectations can lean too much towards entitlement.
Studying may seem a lot like holding an actual job, complete with time-management and hard work. But the more our kids can do necessary work without applause–or a small paycheck–the more conditioned they’ll be for future jobs. They’ll exemplify a solid work ethic by caring about their efforts and self-improvement–and this will make them all the more successful.
Their transition to the rest of the “real world” will also be less of a wake-up call. Just like us, our kids will never get paid for doing their taxes, cleaning the bathrooms, and raising their children (to name a few minor things).
2. Rewards Decrease Motivation
Some parents might argue that the last time their 6-year-old ate her asparagus
, it was only because of the dessert she was promised. Or that their preteen–who hates his new braces–only smiled for the expensive family photoshoot because he was bribed with a new video game.
Yes, rewards DO motivate to some degree in the short-term–but this motivation isn’t sustainable. Kids will eventually want us to up the ante, which leads to increased bargaining and appeasement. One M&M will turn into 5. Ten dollars per ‘A’ will turn into twenty.
Their motivation for a quick-fix is short-term and external rather than long-term and internal.
Also, when we offer rewards, it sends our kids the message that we don’t have confidence they can achieve good grades without added incentive.
This is our cue for providing Encouragement.
Encouragement is helping our kids feel empowered by their choices, like focusing on the effort they put into a grade. It can start small at first, like the extra fifteen minutes they spent studying the night before that helped bring their ‘D’ test score up to a ‘B’.
“Your work earned you that ‘B’! You should feel really proud of the extra effort you put in!“
This encouragement helps connect effort to results and gives kids a hit of confidence and power.
Doling out encouragement isn’t the same as sugary compliments and unhelpful praise, like “you’re just so smart!” or “you’re so good at everything!” It may seem beneficial, but praise like this is just another reward in disguise.
Shallow praise makes kids feel good in the moment, but it also tells them they don’t need to try any harder because they’re already “on top.” Encouragement, on the other hand, focuses less on perfection and more on improvement. It also gives kids the confidence to move forward towards their next goals.
Pro Tip: For our Parenting Success System Members, please check out (or review) our Battle-Tested Blueprint, Say NO to Rewards and Praise and learn how to shift your language to empower your children.
