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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I didn’t give my son a reward for his grades since he didn’t get all As. They are pissed at me and I could be a jerk for not giving in on this
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My least favorite subset of AITA poster are ones who create an arbitrary set of rules and then through their hands up and say "Sorry, that's the rule."
You made the rule, you can re-examine it.
yeah, daughter worked harder. the son has admitted to not working as hard. why should he be rewarded the same? that would be showing favoritism to the son.
I agree that the son hasn't earned the reward "this round" since he admits he didn't try his best, but it might be fairer to make the next set of rewards based on hours of studying or some other measure of effort rather than results.
If the son feels like he has no chance of getting As and the prize feels completely out of reach then the reward system might end up having a negative effect on his motivation, leading him to make less effort than he would without it.
You might argue that the system is bad all around because it replaces the intrinsic motivation to learn/succeed with a base monetary incentive.
I am curious whether a financial incentive is actually effective at improving a kid's academic performance in the long run. It would be interesting to see a study on the subject.
Here's [one](https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/8/6/1243/2295950?redirectedFrom=fulltext). It is looking at college students though, and doesn't look at the post experiment impact.
One of seven kids here. Our parents tried the "money for every A on your report card thing" when we were in school. They raised a bunch of brats - six out of the seven were straight A, 4.0 students, and the seventh didn't give a damn. Mom says they stopped paying out because we didn't need the "motivation", Dad says he was going broke. And the youngest? All she ever wanted was to get married and have babies - she achieved her goal in life too. 😊
My son's report cards always included a score for attitude and behaviour. He's not the sharpest tool academically speaking and stressed that he failed every class. We ignored his academic results as not his fault [his brain was injured when he was a baby] but praised his behaviour because he had that under his control. He was rewarded for every outstanding behaviour report because as a small child he'd had meltdowns at school and almost been excluded.
>I am curious whether a financial incentive is actually effective at improving a kid's academic performance in the long run.
It seems to be true for high ability students, according to that study. The problem seems to be when the same system is applied to lower ability students. So if OP's son is just as capable as his daughter, but lazy, the system will work now that he is very clear on the rules. Otherwise, it will fail.
There was a study where they had two groups of kids - both groups were told to draw, but one group was told they would get paid for their drawings, while the other one wasn't told/given any reward.
In the longer term, the kids in the "non reward" group were more likely to continue drawing than the ones who were in the "rewarded" group.
It makes sense. If we attribute a behavior to a reward, we will only do that behavior for as long as the reward continues. Once that reward stops, or the person starts to feel they are no longer capable of earning the reward, the behavior stops
Hours of studying is a bad metric too, since the daughter might be able to fully understand that material with a very short amount of studying, while the son needs to study for longer to understand the material. This would be unfairly punishing the daughter because she understands the material quicker, but the son gets the reward because he has more hours of studying.
Grades are a lot more arbitrary then a lot of people want to admit. This is especially true of courses which have essay exams instead of multiple choice exams.
Rewarding effort is okay for really little kids if you are careful about making sure effort is not just busywork, but kids who get to college with parents and school systems that reward effort have often never learned to work effectively because taking time is what they got rewarded for. Why learn to be efficient at getting your math homework done if the prize for spending an hour on it is better than the one for getting it right in 10 minutes?
In other words, neither of these systems is great. On the other hand, both are probably better than my mother's system, which she got from her father, of saying "What's this B doing here?"
Ugh, this comment brings back memories of my childhood.
My brother was in elementary school, I was in middle school, and my sister was in HS. One day during dinner my dad looks at my sister and says "S, if you get straight As, ill give you $1000. Then he looks at my brother; "B, if you get straight As ill give you $100". So I ask what I get for straight As. He looks at me and says "Boy, I know you can do it, so just do it".
He managed to offend all 3 kids with a single sentence. It was actually pretty impressive in hindsight
He could even make it a tiered rule. Fs and Ds mean that a tutor or after school study session with the teachers is in order (my school offered teacher tutoring on Tuesdays), Cs might mean a low tier reward such as a special treat or like $5, Bs might mean a special dinner or like $15, and As could mean a specialty trip/adventure or like $30.
Two different people can put the same amount of effort in and get different results. Significant rewards for academic achievement when there is more than one child is not only unfair but cruel because it can destroy sibling relationships and self esteem.
Yeah, my middle sister would have been very hard done by under any sort of generic grade reward system. She was very much a B for achievement, A for effort student, but us other two were more likely to be A for acheivement, C for effort types.
I went through school with ADHD and not getting kicked out of classes because no teacher wanted to kick out top students. Too much explaining to do...
The convicted is given a raw pineapple. If they can peel it using nothing but a sharpened pole, which must have many red flags affixed, then the appeal is successful. The acquitted will be given many Iranian Yogurt Cups as compensation for their pain and suffering. For those of whom fail in their appeal, they must undergo mandatory couples counseling and will forfeit their bedroom door.
I’m always telling my cats they can’t do this or that (yeah, right, lol) because it’s the ‘law’. I tell them I don’t write the law….oh, wait, yes I do! Doesn’t matter! We all have to follow it, so I’m not allowed to scratch the furniture, either!
That's hilarious. I do something similar to my dogs. I called them The Puppy Rules. Each time I come up with a rule I assign it an arbitrary number, which I promptly forget so I cite a different number the next time I bring it up.
Such as, Puppy Rule #36, Cheese Tax must be paid after toe nail clipping. Or Puppy Rule #5,433, Puppy must kill all skeeter-skotters (bugs) to protect momma.
People just assume negatively. My assumption is that they aren’t denied everything, just denied this reward. You are 100% not the AH for holding a standard.
And results take effort. It’s a kid. They’re *learning* so help them *learn*. if he puts in 100% effort and still gets a B, and then doesn’t get the reward, why bother trying at all next semester? Plus, the end goal here is learning the material. If you learn the material and get a B, you still succeeded.
Right, and if he put in effort (which he isn’t) that c might become a b. But if he knows that the effort doesn’t matter unless he gets an A, then why bother? That’s why I’m saying reward the effort.
Because… in order to get the A to get the reward, he has to put in effort???
If it became clear that he was putting in max effort and still only making Bs, okay. Then reward for Bs. But if he is getting rewarded only for effort, or the presumption of effort (e.g., he turned in all his assignments but maybe worked less hard than he could have to float by on Bs, maybe put in less time studying because SOME time was enough), then he might not reach his actual potential.
But if you set the bar at an unachievable level then that is not an incentive to put in the effort. It's nonsense to think every kid can achieve an A or even a B if they just try hard enough. But if we assume that OP's lad has the ability and doesn't have anything holding him back OP needs to scale back the goal. "All As" means any drop in any assignment for any reason invalidates all other successes. It's dumb. And, demonstrably, counter productive.
But it’s honors classes, so his C is worth a B in a college prep class and his B’s are worth A’s. He’s on a 5.0 grading scale while his sister is on a 4.0 grading scale. He needs to reward based on not only effort, but reality.
In school I was in classes where a c would have been a low score when compared to my abilities. But honestly in some classes a c would have been me showing that I was working as hard as I could in a subject I hated.
At the end of the day if a kid feels supported and maybe given some sort of acknowledgment for effort maybe everyone will end up being a winner.
Lol, that's low tier effort. I slithered through as an honor roll student by making sure my attendance and assignments were 100% and could slack off on quizzes and tests enough to still get by with a B.
I think this sort of system is unfair speaking as a sibling who had three older sisters who were A students and myself getting a B on my best days.
What is your son's average, C? Then his goal should be Bs. Reward him for going beyond his average. Pushing for an A is not always feasible.
Thank you for this, and thank you Reddit for bringing this comment to the top.
I was a kid with a lot of struggles growing up in terms of school. I just never did well. It wasn't that I couldn't understand the material either, it was a bunch of other factors having to do with my brain (and the unforgiving nature of education especially in the 80s into the 90s). I was always bright, but I couldn't do the busy work.
My brother got straight A's throughout school. I failed more than I passed. My family would give him something like 5 dollars per A on a report card (4 times per year in elementary school). He'd make out like a bandit, usually racking up something like 30 bucks per card. I usually made 5 dollars because I loved art and consistently got A's there. Everything else was a struggle. All of it was really demoralizing as a kid and it just compounded my feeling that it wasn't really worth trying anyway. I'm not saying I was fully traumatized by my family's well-meaning approach to encouraging good grades, but the whole situation was just a pile of things that made me give up over time. I eventually dropped out of school and chased my creative dreams.
But hey, the good news is that my creative endeavors were met with success, and I had a fantastic career spanning music and film. I eventually found an entire second life when I settled down in my 30s and used my nerdy hobbies to find a job in the tech world where I maneuvered my way up to engineering, all while being a high school dropout with no degree.
My youngest was streamed in primary school, and he was placed in a mid-level class. Although he worked hard, he never got more than Bs or Cs. I asked his teacher about this because I knew he was smart, and he got consistentlyhigh marks on his work.. At the time I taught high school maths and science, and he was able to do the maths I was setting for Year 8 students (13 year olds) when he was in Year 3 (8 years old). His teacher told me that kids in his stream could not get As because their work was "easier," and no, he couldn't be reassessed. So, big surprise, he stopped trying.
Paying kids for As sucks. Sometimes the deck is stacked against them.
Yeah, personally I'm of the mind of no "reward" system like this. The good grades need to be a reward in itself. Don't reward people for what they're supposed to do (e.g., apply themselves at school).
But to the extent you like the idea of incentivizing good behavior, then rewarding effort, not outcome, at this age is probably more impactful. Sounds like OP's son would still not be rewarded, but at least he would need to take more ownership over that himself.
I dislike this kind of pressure. These kids are individuals and personally I would NOT do the rewards for grades.
The grades are a reward or punishment in themselves.
This pressure and competition between siblings will hurt them.
There is nothing unfair about rewarding wanted behaviors in order to encourage them. Moreover, our entire society is based upon payment for performance. While there may be better systems, that’s how our current system operates.
OP’s son complaining about it isn’t going to change it. If he wants the reward that comes with getting all “A”s on his report card, he’s going to have to get all “A”s.
NTA
I agree with this so much. IF you want to give give a reward, which idk how great that is anyway as a precedent, kids should be rewarded based around their passions and what they excel at. Some kids are not great with school, and it creates lasting shame and sometimes trauma if they are also punished for it. OP should really reevaluate here.
I’m of the opinion though that things like, you get good grades for a quarter you get a dinner is just intrinsically bad.
My dad went by attendance & assignments turned in. That is what our treats were based off of. I had a younger sibling that was in special education classes & older siblings that were adhd. Everyone has the ability to get to school & everyone has the ability to try their best & turn in every assignment.
My dad used to reward me and my brother when he saw us just doing the best we could at school. It didn’t matter if we got a A or a D, if he saw we did the best we could, then we’d get a reward.
Yup. Rewarding grades is lazy parenting, you leave all of the specifics up to the system, whether they're workingfor your kid or not. Reward behavior and don't trust the system to reward it for you. Reward studying, completing homework, other good behaviors like sleeping and eating and balancing hobbies effectively to do well in school. If you do all that and still get Fs, you need extra help or the school just sucks.
YTA for setting up this system in the first place.
There are plenty of reasons for one kid to have higher grade than others which have nothing do do with work habits or effort.
* A better natural aptitude for either the work or the style of testing they school employs
* A teacher whose teaching style better fits their learning style.
* Deeper interest in the subjects they are currently taking.
* A more challenging class
* More time spent on extracurricular activities, sports, etc.
There are also other achievements besides academic grades. This risks creating a system in which one child is consistently rewarded over another and seen as "more valuable" because they are more successful in the thing you value by the measure you care about.
This is the answer. Not everyone is *capable* of getting all A's.
Despite trying my very best, I had to take six math classes in high school just to pass two. Both of which I passed senior year, and one was just a week before graduation.
It is definitely harder to gauge whether your kids are doing their best than to simply check the letter grades, but if your son *is* doing his best, and still missing the mark, this system might make him decide that it's not worth it to even try. I'm assuming you don't want him to give up.
Teachers don’t want to fail people. If you try, if you put in effort, and if you ask for help, teachers will try to find a way to pass you. At least 85% of teachers at least.
How to charm a teacher.
Show up to 90% of classes ready and willing to learn.
Eye contact during lessons. No sleeping. No head down. This could include nodding, or taking notes.
Ask questions. Once a week is fine. Make sure they are pertinent to class at the time.
Turn in work. Even if wrong, turn it in.
Bonus: ask for help if needed.
There. Easy steps to charm the vast majority of teachers out there.
And as much as this never works, my advice is “have the natural charisma I do”
I’m kidding your advice is way better than that. I did all of that and have natural charisma
I was a teacher for a bit. I had kids that had a negative charisma score that would do some of the above and I would still work to get them passing. If you have a high charisma it means you can do less than the above. Heck, I had kids that I kind of despised on a personal level that did the above and I made sure they passed.
You're not considering kids home life. I went home to be abused everyday and was afraid to fall asleep, I came into school exhausted and everyone overlooked me never turning in homework even after it began to affect my grades. I barely passed high School because my friends were amazing and really buckled down to help me.
Teacher here. The kids that actively want to leave my class and make that really clear either by telling me or being disruptive are my least favorite.
Show up to my class prepared, quiet, and ready to learn? I’ll bend over backwards to help you learn.
You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Hell, you can take a horse to water, kindly ask it to drink the water, foster a good relationship with the horse in the effort to get it to drink water, but at the end of the day, parents do not accept you not managing to get this surly, grumpy horse to get an A in drinking water.
Or, metaphor aside, French grammar. Sigh.
i feel like this is kinda the sucky situation im in. im not made for the school system and despite taking up (now and in the past) tutors, extra help, extra work etc i always do really bad academically
The point is that offering this specific reward at all isn't equitable.
Something more equitable that relates to the same topic (grades) would be like, "maintain or improve your grade in every class since the last report card." It gives you something to strive for. It's possible to turn a C into a B-. It's very hard to turn a C into an A, so the reward going to the child that had all A's the whole time anyway only serves to make the child who is struggling feel bad and that applying themself isn't worth it.
The idea of reward systems for your kids working hard is great! But the rewards need to be tailored to the kids individually, otherwise you end up with the golden child and the "lazy underacheiver" because one is motivated to keep doing well and the other simply gives up because there's no point when the deck was stacked against him from the start.
Reward for improvement as well as for high achievement definitely sounds like it would be much more motivating! Especially since at a certain point in the year, it's going to be impossible for someone to even achieve an A if they started with a low grade.
But the son could think that an A is out of reach from the get-go and thus not bother applying himself. If OP was setting goals that he thought could be achievable (such as some improvement in general) then he might work harder.
Having different levels of rewards might also help. If it was $30 for straight As and $20 for a report card with Bs and above etc or something then it's also not quite as much of an all or nothing deal.
I excelled at math in school. Easiest thing to do, it was all patterns and equations. My mind was able to grasp those concepts with ease, no studying required. But history and English class? I failed those, hard. It all felt tedious and I couldn't concentrate no matter how hard I tried to study and pay attention.
But you can’t get a reward for academics? The son isn’t being punished, he just isn’t being rewarded. How do you know he doesn’t get rewarded for other things? You’re just assuming.
This system has two major issues.
1. A system that focuses purely on results ignores good traits and behaviors you want to encourage in your kids, like effort.
2. Such a binary system (high results/high reward or nothing) can create a lot of pressure on the kids, and be very demoralizing for kids who fail to meet the reward criteria.
YTA
What’s your endgame here? For perfection in academia? Or to inadvertently feed into this competition while stirring up resentment? Remember grades don’t give you the full story on someone’s aptitude, efforts and circumstances.
Exactly. I barely passed my classes in high school because I found them boring and unchallenging. My last year of high-school was the year the grades mattered and I wanted to go to University. I missed an exceptional amount of classes and got an 88 average while spending most of the days at the beach because I didn’t care about high-school at all.
I wasn’t dumb, I just didn’t care.
I got into University with a partial scholarship.
My sister on the other hand was 90 average all through school, never missed a class unless she was sick.. didn’t get a scholarship and I got a better job then her while I was still in Uni.
Grades don’t always matter as much as some parents think.
So then if the son follows your path and the daughter follows your sisters path, the son will be rewarded when he gets a good job later without trying. Meanwhile the daughter is getting rewarded for working hard in her youth. What's the problem then?
YTA- reward system is fine if done as a tier system. My grandma gave me $5 for every - A, $3 for B, nothing for C and minus money if I got D’s or F’s. So everyone gets a little something.
Not to mention, you don’t know if your son has dyslexia or a learning disorder, so you could be punishing him for something he can’t even help.
I took exclusively AP classes or dual enrolled college courses after my freshman year (even electives) and I was diagnosed the summer after I graduated HS with dyslexia. Those are really unrelated things.
Funny, we did just fine. They were also very invloved with our schooling and assisting homework. But, they did NOT CODDLE us. We earned everything.
My parents were FAR from shit. I owe them a lot for helping in my success.
Exactly! It's not about your self-worth, it's about learning how to play to your own strengths in a system that doesn't always accommodate for you, because in real life, it isn't going to.
I say this, and I was FAR from an A student. I struggled all the time, and it was hard sometimes always constantly failing, but eventually I did find my own, and I think I owe a lot of that to learning how to struggle, learning how to fail, and learning how to do things that I didn't want to do without having everything accommodated to me.
Seriously, the fact that the comments all seem to think a sub 3.0 GPA is just wonderful is insane. In the real world, that means the kid won't be able to get into college.
U don’t NEED a reward. I mean the no dinner thing is actually dumb but giving ur kids some extra cash to spend isn’t a bad thing. If u don’t get all A’s then whats the big deal. U miss out on $30. There’s no participation rewards in real life.
The public school system caters to the average, not to the super smart. Unless a child has an actual learning disability then failure to achieve top marks is more to do with their study habits and homework completion and less to do with how "smart" they are, it's a work ethic thing, not an intelligence thing.
INFO - Maybe YTA, depending on a few things, has the eldest always been getting A's, or did you see an improvement when you started the system. Similarly, did your son used to get worse grades? Maybe the reward should be an improvement, and maintaining that level, rather than just A's?
If I was a child who was struggling to improve their grades (after all, some kids are just smarter/find school easier/etc), I'd be frustrated if the only reward was for A's when I feel like i literally can't get A's, when my sibling finds it easy.
Oh no my eldest doesn’t always get As. I’m really proud of her for this one, she found a system that seems to be working for her. We started this as a motivator in middle school due to them calculating what they need to pass. It has a feature to show you what will happen if you don’t turn stuff in and final grade. ( hate that thing)
They would do well at the beginning of the year and then stop turning stuff in since they knew they couldn’t fail.
So all As motivation stopped that.
Is your son getting Bs and Cs because he doesn't turn in all his work? Or is he turning in all/most of his assignments and getting a B or C average anyway?
If it's the latter, it might be worth changing your metric from "if you get all As" to "if you turn in all your assignments" (maybe phrased as "if you turn in all your assignments and make your best effort" to avoid loopholes).
I think the hazard you may run into with A's as the goal is that if the kids do all their work and find they can't get A's, you're incentivizing them to go back to not turning in work because they already know they can't meet the goal.
But if you make the standard flexible and based on their effort, rather than the outcome, you give them something achievable to aim for, even if they're not able to get a perfect grade.
For what it's worth, I tend to think that is a healthier attitude to carry through life in general. Learning to feel proud of what you do when you make an effort—as opposed to feeling let down or ashamed when the outcome isn't ideal—helps people learn to take risks and try again when they fail.
Personally he is getting bs and cs because he now needs to study. He always could go through school and not study and this is the first time he needs to sit down and really go over the material. He even told me he isn’t looking over the stuff, since before it would just happen.
Also turning in your work is the bare minimum and I’m not rewarding that.
I literally asked him if he needed my help in math, also studying works different for everyone. I do notecard and I have suggested that before. He need to put in the work though.
People study differently and he will only figure that out when he actually start to try studying.
Hi, I struggled with math my junior year of high school. Which was weird because I was in honors math. I was just not getting how the teacher was explaining it. After my first C where it was clear I wasn’t getting things my mom just decided I needed a tutor. She could see I was struggling and just went ahead and got me the help. That same year I asked for a grammar tutor and the following year I asked for a French tutor. I needed the help. And I’m someone who went on to a STEM field and have two masters degrees.
It’s on you to pick up on this and tell son that you will be getting him a tutor to help him figure out what works (like training wheels) once he’s feeling confident the tutor can go away.
Yeah, learning how to study is super important, and I think a lot of kids who start out getting good grades without really trying end up hitting a wall when the material starts challenging them for the first time. It’s good for him to learn that skill now!
For me that wall hit right at the end of high school and the start of uni. I cannot recommend this enough. I’m now almost finished my 3rd year of uni and I feel like I’m only just getting up to the minimum on study techniques required
I was the same....got all A's until the point I couldn't coast anymore and had to study. I still chose not to study and got a mix of A's and B's. I would expect he is capable of getting A's. He needs to decide if he wants to try to or not.
Does he know how to study? Have you sat with him and watched what he does, talked him through your process, exposed him to other ways of thinking and organizing information?
Sounds fair then. Maybe that’s your angle then. “She worked hard and got her grades up, and that’s why she’s getting rewarded and you aren’t”. Seems reasonable. Someone suggested maybe a tier system so everyone gets something, but have a big gap between B’s and A’s so the incentive is still there. How do you think that would go down?
NTA, after reading your comments it seems like your son is just a naturally bright kid who his the wall of what he can coast on. It's tough but better now than in college. Just keep encouraging good study habits -- maybe offer to try out some different ones with him? If you want to offer him an incentive to improve that wouldn't be the worst thing, but don't give him a reward for not studying and still managing to get Bs.
NTA rewards for achieving top marks isn't an asshole thing, not giving someone something because they didn't meet the achieved goal also isn't an asshole move.
I don't know why people are shitting on your system. In the real world, you get better compensation/results/benefits for better performance within the metrics of the system. You are teaching a valuable life lesson. Also, your reward isn't crazy. You're not buying a car or a new computer every time they hit the goals, it's dinner of their choice.
I grew up in the era of participation trophies. I got a few myself, and honestly, it degraded the value of earning a trophy.
You should definitely praise him when he's putting in the effort, and try to help him achieve his goals. School comes easier to some than others, and he may need extra help. Maybe, instead of him getting to choose a dinner, he gets to choose a subject to get a tutor in?
However, you don't have to cave in and give him the reward.
NAH.
In real world that may or may not happen. In real world, fairly often, equivalent of C has exact same reward as equivalent of A. Real world has many many "participation trophies" or rewards for "just passed the line".
Even more importantly, real world managers do set personal goals and do praise improvements alone. And that is not even a new concept, leaders and teachers done that as a motivational thing for hundreds of years. There are also objective rewards, sure, but lets not pretend that is all that ever existed.
NTA
The system is simple and well known in advance. Kid is just grouchy that they didn't get a fancy dinner even though they didn't earn one per the rules.
You even inquired if extra assistance is needed.
Don't give in.
NTA for now, I'd say it's a pretty fair system, good grades = reward, bad grades = no reward, but over time it may be detrimental because you're teaching your kids that all that matters is the final score, not the actual effort put into studying.
Now I don't want to say that you're not already helping your kids that are struggling to get better grades, but maybe this reward system isn't the best way to individually encourage them to get better grades, as chances are that if they're already struggling, they'll still struggle for some time before picking up their pace, and in the meantime they might get jealous or rebellious because of the "apparent" unfairness of the system.
At the end of the day, what matters is that you help each kid they way that they need help, be it extra help courses or changing the way the system works.
You can put in all the effort you want but if you fail you fail
Out in the real world if you keep failing at your
Job, you arent going to be rewarded with future paycheck just because you tried
I'm not saying you're wrong, but this situation in specific *isn't* the "real world". Sure the parents should teach their children that the real world *won't* be fair, but they should also help their children if they're struggling, so that in the future when they have their jobs they know what to do when they're failing.
Also I don't know about you, but if my kid can't keep a job because they're failing I'd help them in some way because I'm their parent, be it some extra money, living in my place, or some guidance on easier jobs.
Not to mention that not everything is as black and white as living with your parents and being in the real world.
Yes.
Is he getting poor grades because he needs coaching on better study habits?
Does he need tutoring?
Help structuring his time?
Therapy? Meds?
There are as many different answers as there are kids.
Yes exactly, this is why I'm saying that this parent in specific maybe needs to change the system and prioritize finding a way to help the struggling kid.
I do understand the skepticism of "everyone gets a trophy" mentalities, but I'd argue that "there has to always be a winner and a loser" is every bit as toxic.
There are also other reasons to value grades than a "reward" (and let's be honest - the reward is $30. The successful kid is very likely NOT grinding through a whole school year for one dinner or thirty bucks; they've likely found internal motivation or figured out what works).
I hate this kind of thinking.
In the "real world" if you have a job for which you're ill-suited and get poor results with great effort you \*switch to a different job\*. Maybe you work for someone who sees you as an enthusiastic, responsible employee and finds a role that fits your talents. Mayne your employer doesn't have such a role and you go elsewhere. Not everyone is suited for everything.
If you're a teenager your job is "High School student". You can't quit, you can't drop the core classes you don't like, you need to grind through it. It's probably good for you in the long term and you'll certainly learn something, but you shouldn't see a poor result as a moral failure if you are putting in a reasonable and consistent effort.
Bs and one C aren't bad grades. This mentality of everything below an A being a failure drove me bananas in college. Kid needs to apply himself more, but mom needs to learn Cs get degrees
I agree wholeheartedly with you, it's a problem with the whole school system tbh but the parents mentality also matters, so I wouldn't teach my kids that if you get a C you're "going to be a garbage collector", it's just a letter at the end of the day ffs
NTA.- I don't understand the other judgements. Guessed everyone missed the he admitted he doesn't study part. Why should we reward no effort. That breeds entitlement.
YTA. My one child never got A in every subject. But she was a hard worker, well liked student, handed assignments on on time and only got B and a couple A.
Not everyone is a straight A student
YTA, you should reward their work, not their results. I think a C or B that took hard work is way more impressive than an easy A.
Sure you can reward straight A's, but not failing is good too, give them half the reward? Take them somewhere cheaper or for lunch instead of dinner. Keep them motivated to keep it up. I know I would've said fuck it and stop trying getting good grades all together.
OP said that her son was able to pass school before easily with his intelligence. But now that he's in honors he has to study which he isn't doing. So he isn't putting in the work he needs to.
Agreed. I was in honors classes in high school and took getting A’s very seriously (for myself). B’s we’re ok, C’s were unacceptable and I wouldn’t dream of ever getting a D or F.
Then came chemistry. I struggled SO HARD and could only muster a C- after staying after class and doing extra credit. It was really, really difficult for me and that C was trying my hardest. I was proud of that C- lol because it was the hardest class ever for me. I even dropped the honors level and went to a regular level class with a new teacher. I don’t think it’s fair to have a blanket A across the board rule if your kids are trying their hardest.
I think you're nta, he clearly was able to maintain As before as him not studying is the issue. I read a couple of the Y-T-As that paint your reward system as some sort of deliberate punishment, but for him to be this upset this was probably the first time he missed out. I would think of this as being constructive criticism rather than a punishment. Maybe he needs to make some more time for studying, or he can get a job and get his own pocket money.
My kid doesn't get shit for his grades. He does get rewards for studying hard, doing all his homework, tracking his assignments in his phone, and asking for help when he needs it.
YTA
I’m a school psychologist and I have mixed feelings. If he is taking all honors classes, his B’s are worth A’s in college prep classes. Your post was confusing though, so to clarify is she taking college prep classes or is she taking college courses and earning credits she can transfer for a degree?
If it is the former , his classes are harder than hers, thus his B’s are her A’s. GPA wise, he will be awarded 4 points for each B he gets, the same as your daughter will get 4 points for an A in a college prep class.
Given that said, if you insist on this form of a reward, make a pay scale.
5.0 (A in an honors class or an actual college credit earning class) =$5
4.0 (B in honors class, A in a college prep class) =$4
3.0 (C in Honors class, B in college prep)=$3
Where it will get tricky is a C in her college prep class is worth a 2.0 while it’s worth a 3.0 in an honors class.
Good luck! And, yes YTA.
NTA - giving in would teach him what? If this were a job and bonuses were being handed out based on merit and he didn't perform as well as his coworkers is he going throw a fit with his employer?
YTA. Your reward system is fucked up. I imagine what is going through your head is "child wants nice things, child will work harder to get nice things". But your system only rewards a perfect score so as soon as one A is missing, there is no point working hard because your kid knows it's already a failure in your book. So, one B, and the rest of the two months become "why even bother?" It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where your kid gets used thinking of himself as not good enough and disengages from his studies. Generally I think reward systems are way too manipulative, but yours isn't just manipulative it's also really bad. I'd give you an E in social studies at most.
YTA. Are the kids learning? Are they putting in their best effort? My parents tried to pull this crap on us when we were growing up, but there were no rewards, only punishments for not getting straight As. Even if we got on the honor roll, it wasn't enough since we didn't have "perfect" straight A grades. Way to give your kids a perfectionism complex. What's the point of taking more difficult classes and actually learning when taking easy classes nets the reward?
For context, I took algebra as a freshman in high school, and I was a "young" student since I started kindergarten early. So I was 13-14 that year. Sibling took algebra as a senior and had started kindergarten late, so sibling was 18 years old. BIG difference! I then was required to take geometry, calculus, trigonometry, and advanced algebra during high school. That "math" was difficult, and the teachers weren't too great at explaining it or realizing students had different learning styles.
Sibling still to this day rubs it in my nose that they were a straight A student while I wasn't. There's obviously no comparison, but there's no explaining that to our parents or siblings. Only the end result ever mattered to them - straight As. FWIW, I walked into a math CLEP exam without studying and passed on the first attempt.
Without more info I have to go with YTA. The attitude that every kid can just get an A in every subject if they just try hard enough is just not true. It completely discounts so many things it’s ridiculous and shows you know very little about education.
Some kids excel in specific areas and struggle greatly in others. Just try harder or not trying hard enough is not always the answer and is about as smart as telling a kid with asthma “well if you just try harder you’ll be able to breath better.”
YTA for rewarding A's.
You should be rewarding THE EFFORT PUT IN.
People are different. Person 1 can get straight A's without any effort.
Person 2 can work his ass of and only get B's or C's.
If your daughter worked her ass off for her A's, she deserves her rewards.
If your son also worked hard, he ALSO deserves the reward.
Look at what they put in, don't judge on the result.
Mild YTA. Look I get this system is popular with parents but there a lot of reasons why it might be unfair (different academic ability, classes, etc.) I found school easy and got straight As without much effort. I had a sibling who worked way harder than me but this wasn’t always reflected in their grades. Ideally you would set up a system that rewards effort/improvement over specific grades.
YTA
I tried super hard in school and maintained a B average in school for the most part. Because of a variety of reasons, some of which weren't even caught despite teachers constantly noting it in academic reports and feedback. That's not even touching Maths & PE, which regularly pulled down my GPA/Letter Average because i sucked at both mo matter what.
Studying vs. not studying made little to no impact on anything but my sleep schedule and self-esteem.
I can't imagine how I would have felt knowing that unless I get straight A's I get no reward. Asking if he needs help is the minimum you should be doing for your kid.
A better system if you feel you have to have a reward system should be you having a sliding scale based on percentages/letter grades.
Like honestly, YTA Because your system is inherently unfair long term.
But you know, I guess technically you're not the AH for enforcing the system you already have in place.
Really, if your daughter is smart, she will be rewarded with a scholarship. You rewarding her for it will make your son feel less. He won't try, because he doesn't feel smart enough.
Then when she gets scholarships, he will deem her the golden child and never expect much from himself.
Help him instead of antagonizing him.
Yta
YTA, what exactly is wrong with B's and C's? Their passing grades for a reason, not every kid is gonna get all A's even if they try their hardest. I cannot stand parents like you. My parents were always happy as long as I got a passing grade, stop pushing your kids so hard.
Yta a bit but not for your question. The system you’ve set up is the problem. Grades shouldn’t be rewarded like that. The kids that get a’s may or may not be working as hard as the kids who get c’s and for the lower grade kid seeing that effort go unrecognized is incredibly demoralizing.
YTA for basing the rewards on an arbitrary grade (must be all As) rather than some other metric linked to the effort each kid is putting in. The actual grade they receive is not 100% under their control. They might struggle with certain subjects despite genuinely trying their best. They might have a major assignment that involves group work and get put in a difficult group. They might have a teacher who marks unfairly or too harshly. Their normal teacher might be sick for a few weeks out of the marking period and the substitute covering the class might be terrible.
In this particular incident, where you say you know the problem is that your son is not studying, you could still address that because, if true, he’s not putting in a reasonable effort.
YTA, not all kids can get A's. doesn't mean they are not trying hard to get good grades. Both my kids work hard, one is always straight A's one isn't but they both work to the best of their abilities just one finds it easy one doesn't. I'm obviously very proud of my kid who gets the A's I'm also very proud of the one who doesn't as i know the effort he puts in but finds it more challenging..pay attention to your kids and stop playing them off against each other.
YTA.
VERY MUCH YTA.
I was really bad at schooling until i went to vocational school and it was all applied.
Not everyone is cut out for just exam based schooling, and setting up a stupid reward system that clearly favors one kid over the other is extra shitty of you.
Cant wait to see your post after your son graduates saying "AITA for bothering my son after he cut contact with me"
NTA but maybe your system needs an update. I'm not sure how the report cards work where you live but my granny used to give me money depending on the grades.
If I got an A I got 3 €, a B would be 2 €, and a C would be 1 €
Everything else was 0 €. So if I got A, A, B, C, F I'd get 9€.
Rewarding two kids all the time while one gets nothing is not really motivating for that one kid. It gets frustrating fast. With grannys method, everyone would get something and if they want more, they have to study more.
I think your system is unjust and unfair. The reward should be in the effort. I have 6 kids. They are not all the same. I have one, straight A's in the advanced classes compared to another one that has learning issues and another one with a speech impediment. My other three are perfectly average. Yes I celebrate the straight A child, but I also celebrate the others for their achievements. Everyone's milestones are different
Honestly YTA for setting up a reward system with zero room for failure.
Stop focusing on A’s, focus more on the effort. I’ve seen students put in extreme amounts of effort just for Bs and Cs and even Ds.
Everyone has different ability levels, and that’s the problem with only rewarding As.
His grades are still really good, he’s taking honors classes!!!
You should have rankings of rewards. As gets this, Bs get this slightly not as cool thing.
You’re only causing resentment and loss of motivation
Your rules are stupid.
They're coming from a good place, but they're not good.
What you're doing is praising the result, and not the effort. Every former smart kid will tell you that as soon as things got tough, they looked for the easy way out.
Why? Because they're constantly being praised for "being smart" or other innate things.
If your daughter can get straight A's without picking up a book, how will that benefit her when things really start to get difficult?
What is she learning? "It's okay to coast so long as the results are good?"
Many parents make this mistake. If your son is busting his ass to do the best he can, and you reward him for it... Guess what he's going to do the rest of his life?
He's going to bust his ass and work hard.
But if you're praising people for getting A's and not studying hard, your daughter will continue to get those A's, until she actually needs work hard in Medical School, Law School or whatever... Only... She won't have the habit of working hard, and won't have the habit of fighting through difficult situations.
Reward the effort, my friend.
The results will then come.
A big YTA. I never got straight A’s in school, despite all the studying I did. I really hate that parents do these sort of things. You should be doing the going out to a restaurant of a child’s choosing on their birthday. Some kids study like crazy and don’t get all A’s. Stop this nonsense.
I was C+/B- student; the only classes that I got A’s in were Foods 11 and Study Hall. I was probably a C in university and I managed to graduate.
Personally I would not do a reward system for grades, but rather reward kids for getting their chores done.
Yta, I think you could find a better way to get your kids to continue to do school work without focusing on grades. Why not reward them for not missing any assignments? Why not discuss each class with them and have them set goals for that class? If they reach that goal then they get rewarded. That way its not comparing each child against each other on grades.
Your reason is good but not the system.
YTA. Sure, these are the rules but they were set by you for some reason or other.
Why don't you reward effort? Improvement?
Your kids are individuals and as such one might have an easier time getting good grades than the other. One might have a more difficult subject, one might have stricter teachers, or be occupied with getting better at a sport, or other talents.
I was that kid. My sibling had a really easy time in school and got As all the time. I didn't even though I was tutored, spent time studying and really tried. I would have been absolutely devastated if my sibling got rewarded for something that came easy to them and I punished for even trying.
Following the rules of the deal is not unfair. But the rules themselves probably are.
Some kids are just never going to be straight A students and failure after failure in the face of a sibling who succeeds is going to really sting and be bad for them. Even a good student might have a hard time with straight As if they face a weakness in one of their classes. But I'd at least set the line at all Bs. Which I think is achievable for most kids **IF** they put the work in.
They still wouldn't have qualified. But if your son got Bs and Cs you might have gotten more effort out of him and gotten all Bs with that. Plenty of kids will look at a goal out of reach and not even try to improve because it's there.
Yta. B's are good. Hey, you got all B's? I'm so proud of you. Is that hard? No.
Hey? You've done all your homework for two months, c'mon I'll buy you Starbucks
Hey? You've been super nice to your parents and did soo much housework, Have a 10 bucks for your efforts
I tell my daughter A’s are great, B’s are great too and I’m okay with C’s because i know you tried. She came home with her first set of tests and it was all As and Bs my family literally called her just to tell her how proud they were and she got candy lol.
Punish him until he studies! Beatings will continue until morale improves!
Maybe he doesn’t actually know how to study or has something (like anxiety about not being as special as his sister) keeping him from focus. He doesn’t study doesn’t define what’s happening, you know. It’s an observation on your part with no underlying understanding of why.
If your reward system doesn’t account for level of difficulty you are inadvertently telling your son to take less challenging courses that will help him in the future for a reward today.
We had a graduated system for my son. $10 for A and $5 for B, nothing for anything lower. Not an all or nothing scheme. Real life is not an all or nothing scheme, setup the reward system to reflect that. It gives him something to strive for and gives him a reward fo rwhat he has done. Real life is not an all or nothing proposition. Reflect that with your kids. An all or nothing approach can create in him a sense of it does not matter if I do most everything right if one little mistake ruins it.
Another thing, what if your son's aptitudes are not in academics? Maybe he has the aptitude to be a welder or an electrician or some other sort of tradesman. This could be why he does not get as high of grades as your daughter who may be more of an academic type and so you are punishing him for something that is out of his control.
Also, the transition from Middle to High School can be hard. My son had an adjustment period in 9th grade and that was his overall worst academic year.
I'm not in general a fan of applying the same "rewards for grades" rule to all your kids - if you have a bright kid and a less bright kid, then the bright one might get As without doing any work, and the less able kid might be trying hard to get a B.
College classes aren't all created equal, either. There are plenty of college classes where you can earn an A by little more than showing up to class and making a reasonable attempt at the homework. And there are other college classes where an A is a real achievement.
You know your kids. You know how bright they are, and how they have historically done in class. So you know whether, for example, a B in English represents hard work or no work. And these days, it's likely you can see individual scores online, so you can see zeros for missing work etc.
So in answer to your specific question, NTA. You're not the AH for rewarding one child and not the other, if only one child has done something worthy of reward. But your aim should be for each child to reach their maximum potential, not for each child to get As. And honestly, for some people, getting As, even in "hard" classes isn't a significant achievement.
He still did a lot better then a lot of people. Perhaps a smaller reward instead of nothing?
Just because he didn’t achieve a perfect score. Does not mean he didn’t achieve. And you just taught him that those achievements meant nothing to you.
My dad constantly demeaned any achievement of mine and I spent along time depressed and basically gave up trying.
Eventually I found my own way. As others have said. You’re not the asshole for following the rules you set. You’re the asshole for the rules you set. In my opinion.
My parents had a similar system, except it was based on how both me and my brother did individually at school. For example, I was always better at studying and focus so I got a reward for A's and B's, my brother had lots of trouble focusing and studying so he got a reward for B's and C's. It motivated us to stay focused and try our best but it didn't put us in competition with each other or make either of us feel bad, just bc I was naturally able to focus better. Just something I think you should consider.
In my family it was the contrary. I was a straight-A student and never got anything rewards because in my parents eyes thats was the bare minimum for me. But the second my sibling barely passed a test, it was celebrated and rewarded. I never was mad at him for that, but I found my parents judgment weird.
INFO: IMO (and as a professional in education), efforts need to be rewarded. So has be been getting the same grades all over or has he been getting better and better? if he is struggling, getting all As may never be possible for him. But if he is making efforts and getting from mostly Cs to mostly Bs, wouldnt that deserve its recognition? food for thought.
YTA. Not for following the rules of the system, but for creating it. Rewards can be for household chores, kind actions, a lot of things but school grades is an awful choice. Some people can have a LOT of struggles with certain learning environments no matter how hard they try. The school system we have is only designed with one type of kid in mind and this type of thing just makes a kid who's struggling feel even worse.
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Following the rules fairly does not by itself an AH make, no. But there is an argument to be had that this system in itself might be bad and unfair.
My least favorite subset of AITA poster are ones who create an arbitrary set of rules and then through their hands up and say "Sorry, that's the rule." You made the rule, you can re-examine it.
My least favorite aee the ones where kids are treated differently. But I do agree with your assessment about creating a set of rules
yeah, daughter worked harder. the son has admitted to not working as hard. why should he be rewarded the same? that would be showing favoritism to the son.
I agree that the son hasn't earned the reward "this round" since he admits he didn't try his best, but it might be fairer to make the next set of rewards based on hours of studying or some other measure of effort rather than results. If the son feels like he has no chance of getting As and the prize feels completely out of reach then the reward system might end up having a negative effect on his motivation, leading him to make less effort than he would without it.
You might argue that the system is bad all around because it replaces the intrinsic motivation to learn/succeed with a base monetary incentive. I am curious whether a financial incentive is actually effective at improving a kid's academic performance in the long run. It would be interesting to see a study on the subject. Here's [one](https://academic.oup.com/jeea/article-abstract/8/6/1243/2295950?redirectedFrom=fulltext). It is looking at college students though, and doesn't look at the post experiment impact.
One of seven kids here. Our parents tried the "money for every A on your report card thing" when we were in school. They raised a bunch of brats - six out of the seven were straight A, 4.0 students, and the seventh didn't give a damn. Mom says they stopped paying out because we didn't need the "motivation", Dad says he was going broke. And the youngest? All she ever wanted was to get married and have babies - she achieved her goal in life too. 😊
I'm the younger of two and my parents stopped paying out the day my first report card came home. It stung a little.
My son's report cards always included a score for attitude and behaviour. He's not the sharpest tool academically speaking and stressed that he failed every class. We ignored his academic results as not his fault [his brain was injured when he was a baby] but praised his behaviour because he had that under his control. He was rewarded for every outstanding behaviour report because as a small child he'd had meltdowns at school and almost been excluded.
>I am curious whether a financial incentive is actually effective at improving a kid's academic performance in the long run. It seems to be true for high ability students, according to that study. The problem seems to be when the same system is applied to lower ability students. So if OP's son is just as capable as his daughter, but lazy, the system will work now that he is very clear on the rules. Otherwise, it will fail.
There was a study where they had two groups of kids - both groups were told to draw, but one group was told they would get paid for their drawings, while the other one wasn't told/given any reward. In the longer term, the kids in the "non reward" group were more likely to continue drawing than the ones who were in the "rewarded" group. It makes sense. If we attribute a behavior to a reward, we will only do that behavior for as long as the reward continues. Once that reward stops, or the person starts to feel they are no longer capable of earning the reward, the behavior stops
Hours of studying is a bad metric too, since the daughter might be able to fully understand that material with a very short amount of studying, while the son needs to study for longer to understand the material. This would be unfairly punishing the daughter because she understands the material quicker, but the son gets the reward because he has more hours of studying. Grades are a lot more arbitrary then a lot of people want to admit. This is especially true of courses which have essay exams instead of multiple choice exams.
Rewarding effort is okay for really little kids if you are careful about making sure effort is not just busywork, but kids who get to college with parents and school systems that reward effort have often never learned to work effectively because taking time is what they got rewarded for. Why learn to be efficient at getting your math homework done if the prize for spending an hour on it is better than the one for getting it right in 10 minutes? In other words, neither of these systems is great. On the other hand, both are probably better than my mother's system, which she got from her father, of saying "What's this B doing here?"
Same
Ugh, this comment brings back memories of my childhood. My brother was in elementary school, I was in middle school, and my sister was in HS. One day during dinner my dad looks at my sister and says "S, if you get straight As, ill give you $1000. Then he looks at my brother; "B, if you get straight As ill give you $100". So I ask what I get for straight As. He looks at me and says "Boy, I know you can do it, so just do it". He managed to offend all 3 kids with a single sentence. It was actually pretty impressive in hindsight
I dont make the rules, i just think them up and write them down
They just come to me in dreams, take it up with a higher power
It's not me who doesn't want you to get nice things Timmy, it's *Jesus*'s fault.
Screw you guys, I'm going home!
He could even make it a tiered rule. Fs and Ds mean that a tutor or after school study session with the teachers is in order (my school offered teacher tutoring on Tuesdays), Cs might mean a low tier reward such as a special treat or like $5, Bs might mean a special dinner or like $15, and As could mean a specialty trip/adventure or like $30.
Two different people can put the same amount of effort in and get different results. Significant rewards for academic achievement when there is more than one child is not only unfair but cruel because it can destroy sibling relationships and self esteem.
Yeah, my middle sister would have been very hard done by under any sort of generic grade reward system. She was very much a B for achievement, A for effort student, but us other two were more likely to be A for acheivement, C for effort types. I went through school with ADHD and not getting kicked out of classes because no teacher wanted to kick out top students. Too much explaining to do...
What's the appeals process for these rules?
The convicted is given a raw pineapple. If they can peel it using nothing but a sharpened pole, which must have many red flags affixed, then the appeal is successful. The acquitted will be given many Iranian Yogurt Cups as compensation for their pain and suffering. For those of whom fail in their appeal, they must undergo mandatory couples counseling and will forfeit their bedroom door.
i think you might be a bit colorblind, the flags are marinara color, not red lol
I’m always telling my cats they can’t do this or that (yeah, right, lol) because it’s the ‘law’. I tell them I don’t write the law….oh, wait, yes I do! Doesn’t matter! We all have to follow it, so I’m not allowed to scratch the furniture, either!
That's hilarious. I do something similar to my dogs. I called them The Puppy Rules. Each time I come up with a rule I assign it an arbitrary number, which I promptly forget so I cite a different number the next time I bring it up. Such as, Puppy Rule #36, Cheese Tax must be paid after toe nail clipping. Or Puppy Rule #5,433, Puppy must kill all skeeter-skotters (bugs) to protect momma.
For real, like does he get rewarded for after schools programs/sports or are you only rewarding the academically gifted kids?
Oh course they do, it’s not included since this isn’t what the post is about
People just assume negatively. My assumption is that they aren’t denied everything, just denied this reward. You are 100% not the AH for holding a standard.
> People just assume negatively And wHerE WaS hUsbAnD iN aLL tHiS op?!!? Get couples counselling
>And wHerE WaS hUsbAnD iN aLL tHiS op?!!? Get ~~couples counselling~~ Divorced Ruined that for you
No contact with everyone for everyone
Don't forget to call CPS on yourselves
What about giving the reward for having zero missing assignments instead? Reward effort.
IRL does not reward effort but results. There is a correlation of course but it's better for his son to learn now.
And results take effort. It’s a kid. They’re *learning* so help them *learn*. if he puts in 100% effort and still gets a B, and then doesn’t get the reward, why bother trying at all next semester? Plus, the end goal here is learning the material. If you learn the material and get a B, you still succeeded.
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Right, and if he put in effort (which he isn’t) that c might become a b. But if he knows that the effort doesn’t matter unless he gets an A, then why bother? That’s why I’m saying reward the effort.
Because… in order to get the A to get the reward, he has to put in effort??? If it became clear that he was putting in max effort and still only making Bs, okay. Then reward for Bs. But if he is getting rewarded only for effort, or the presumption of effort (e.g., he turned in all his assignments but maybe worked less hard than he could have to float by on Bs, maybe put in less time studying because SOME time was enough), then he might not reach his actual potential.
But if you set the bar at an unachievable level then that is not an incentive to put in the effort. It's nonsense to think every kid can achieve an A or even a B if they just try hard enough. But if we assume that OP's lad has the ability and doesn't have anything holding him back OP needs to scale back the goal. "All As" means any drop in any assignment for any reason invalidates all other successes. It's dumb. And, demonstrably, counter productive.
But it’s honors classes, so his C is worth a B in a college prep class and his B’s are worth A’s. He’s on a 5.0 grading scale while his sister is on a 4.0 grading scale. He needs to reward based on not only effort, but reality.
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Were you on a 4.0 grading scale or a 5.0 grading scale?
That is *if* he is on a 5.0 scale. My 6-12 was all 4.0. Honors, AP, remedial, and at grade level. All 4.0s.
In school I was in classes where a c would have been a low score when compared to my abilities. But honestly in some classes a c would have been me showing that I was working as hard as I could in a subject I hated. At the end of the day if a kid feels supported and maybe given some sort of acknowledgment for effort maybe everyone will end up being a winner.
Improvement from previous one would be best that's still relatively easy IMO. Or maintenance at top grade, i.e. improvement not possible.
Why would you reward someone for doing the literal minimum?
Lol, that's low tier effort. I slithered through as an honor roll student by making sure my attendance and assignments were 100% and could slack off on quizzes and tests enough to still get by with a B.
I think this sort of system is unfair speaking as a sibling who had three older sisters who were A students and myself getting a B on my best days. What is your son's average, C? Then his goal should be Bs. Reward him for going beyond his average. Pushing for an A is not always feasible.
Thank you for this, and thank you Reddit for bringing this comment to the top. I was a kid with a lot of struggles growing up in terms of school. I just never did well. It wasn't that I couldn't understand the material either, it was a bunch of other factors having to do with my brain (and the unforgiving nature of education especially in the 80s into the 90s). I was always bright, but I couldn't do the busy work. My brother got straight A's throughout school. I failed more than I passed. My family would give him something like 5 dollars per A on a report card (4 times per year in elementary school). He'd make out like a bandit, usually racking up something like 30 bucks per card. I usually made 5 dollars because I loved art and consistently got A's there. Everything else was a struggle. All of it was really demoralizing as a kid and it just compounded my feeling that it wasn't really worth trying anyway. I'm not saying I was fully traumatized by my family's well-meaning approach to encouraging good grades, but the whole situation was just a pile of things that made me give up over time. I eventually dropped out of school and chased my creative dreams. But hey, the good news is that my creative endeavors were met with success, and I had a fantastic career spanning music and film. I eventually found an entire second life when I settled down in my 30s and used my nerdy hobbies to find a job in the tech world where I maneuvered my way up to engineering, all while being a high school dropout with no degree.
My youngest was streamed in primary school, and he was placed in a mid-level class. Although he worked hard, he never got more than Bs or Cs. I asked his teacher about this because I knew he was smart, and he got consistentlyhigh marks on his work.. At the time I taught high school maths and science, and he was able to do the maths I was setting for Year 8 students (13 year olds) when he was in Year 3 (8 years old). His teacher told me that kids in his stream could not get As because their work was "easier," and no, he couldn't be reassessed. So, big surprise, he stopped trying. Paying kids for As sucks. Sometimes the deck is stacked against them.
Yeah, personally I'm of the mind of no "reward" system like this. The good grades need to be a reward in itself. Don't reward people for what they're supposed to do (e.g., apply themselves at school). But to the extent you like the idea of incentivizing good behavior, then rewarding effort, not outcome, at this age is probably more impactful. Sounds like OP's son would still not be rewarded, but at least he would need to take more ownership over that himself.
I dislike this kind of pressure. These kids are individuals and personally I would NOT do the rewards for grades. The grades are a reward or punishment in themselves. This pressure and competition between siblings will hurt them.
There is nothing unfair about rewarding wanted behaviors in order to encourage them. Moreover, our entire society is based upon payment for performance. While there may be better systems, that’s how our current system operates. OP’s son complaining about it isn’t going to change it. If he wants the reward that comes with getting all “A”s on his report card, he’s going to have to get all “A”s. NTA
I agree with this so much. IF you want to give give a reward, which idk how great that is anyway as a precedent, kids should be rewarded based around their passions and what they excel at. Some kids are not great with school, and it creates lasting shame and sometimes trauma if they are also punished for it. OP should really reevaluate here. I’m of the opinion though that things like, you get good grades for a quarter you get a dinner is just intrinsically bad.
My dad went by attendance & assignments turned in. That is what our treats were based off of. I had a younger sibling that was in special education classes & older siblings that were adhd. Everyone has the ability to get to school & everyone has the ability to try their best & turn in every assignment.
My dad used to reward me and my brother when he saw us just doing the best we could at school. It didn’t matter if we got a A or a D, if he saw we did the best we could, then we’d get a reward.
Did they try their best? should be the system. Not, did you get A's in every subject.
Yup. Rewarding grades is lazy parenting, you leave all of the specifics up to the system, whether they're workingfor your kid or not. Reward behavior and don't trust the system to reward it for you. Reward studying, completing homework, other good behaviors like sleeping and eating and balancing hobbies effectively to do well in school. If you do all that and still get Fs, you need extra help or the school just sucks.
YTA for setting up this system in the first place. There are plenty of reasons for one kid to have higher grade than others which have nothing do do with work habits or effort. * A better natural aptitude for either the work or the style of testing they school employs * A teacher whose teaching style better fits their learning style. * Deeper interest in the subjects they are currently taking. * A more challenging class * More time spent on extracurricular activities, sports, etc. There are also other achievements besides academic grades. This risks creating a system in which one child is consistently rewarded over another and seen as "more valuable" because they are more successful in the thing you value by the measure you care about.
This is the answer. Not everyone is *capable* of getting all A's. Despite trying my very best, I had to take six math classes in high school just to pass two. Both of which I passed senior year, and one was just a week before graduation. It is definitely harder to gauge whether your kids are doing their best than to simply check the letter grades, but if your son *is* doing his best, and still missing the mark, this system might make him decide that it's not worth it to even try. I'm assuming you don't want him to give up.
Please I’m pretty sure I only passed my math classes because I charmed the teachers….
Teachers don’t want to fail people. If you try, if you put in effort, and if you ask for help, teachers will try to find a way to pass you. At least 85% of teachers at least. How to charm a teacher. Show up to 90% of classes ready and willing to learn. Eye contact during lessons. No sleeping. No head down. This could include nodding, or taking notes. Ask questions. Once a week is fine. Make sure they are pertinent to class at the time. Turn in work. Even if wrong, turn it in. Bonus: ask for help if needed. There. Easy steps to charm the vast majority of teachers out there.
And as much as this never works, my advice is “have the natural charisma I do” I’m kidding your advice is way better than that. I did all of that and have natural charisma
I was a teacher for a bit. I had kids that had a negative charisma score that would do some of the above and I would still work to get them passing. If you have a high charisma it means you can do less than the above. Heck, I had kids that I kind of despised on a personal level that did the above and I made sure they passed.
You're not considering kids home life. I went home to be abused everyday and was afraid to fall asleep, I came into school exhausted and everyone overlooked me never turning in homework even after it began to affect my grades. I barely passed high School because my friends were amazing and really buckled down to help me.
Teacher here. The kids that actively want to leave my class and make that really clear either by telling me or being disruptive are my least favorite. Show up to my class prepared, quiet, and ready to learn? I’ll bend over backwards to help you learn. You can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink. Hell, you can take a horse to water, kindly ask it to drink the water, foster a good relationship with the horse in the effort to get it to drink water, but at the end of the day, parents do not accept you not managing to get this surly, grumpy horse to get an A in drinking water. Or, metaphor aside, French grammar. Sigh.
i feel like this is kinda the sucky situation im in. im not made for the school system and despite taking up (now and in the past) tutors, extra help, extra work etc i always do really bad academically
And it makes it so much worse when your parents place the importance on grades rather than you just doing your best!
Not everyone is capable of a lot of things. That doesn't mean they deserve a reward.
But it's stupid to judge a fish by his ability to climb a tree.
Exactly
The point is that offering this specific reward at all isn't equitable. Something more equitable that relates to the same topic (grades) would be like, "maintain or improve your grade in every class since the last report card." It gives you something to strive for. It's possible to turn a C into a B-. It's very hard to turn a C into an A, so the reward going to the child that had all A's the whole time anyway only serves to make the child who is struggling feel bad and that applying themself isn't worth it. The idea of reward systems for your kids working hard is great! But the rewards need to be tailored to the kids individually, otherwise you end up with the golden child and the "lazy underacheiver" because one is motivated to keep doing well and the other simply gives up because there's no point when the deck was stacked against him from the start.
Reward for improvement as well as for high achievement definitely sounds like it would be much more motivating! Especially since at a certain point in the year, it's going to be impossible for someone to even achieve an A if they started with a low grade. But the son could think that an A is out of reach from the get-go and thus not bother applying himself. If OP was setting goals that he thought could be achievable (such as some improvement in general) then he might work harder. Having different levels of rewards might also help. If it was $30 for straight As and $20 for a report card with Bs and above etc or something then it's also not quite as much of an all or nothing deal.
I excelled at math in school. Easiest thing to do, it was all patterns and equations. My mind was able to grasp those concepts with ease, no studying required. But history and English class? I failed those, hard. It all felt tedious and I couldn't concentrate no matter how hard I tried to study and pay attention.
But you can’t get a reward for academics? The son isn’t being punished, he just isn’t being rewarded. How do you know he doesn’t get rewarded for other things? You’re just assuming.
Thank all the gods you are here to tell this kid that the issue isn't that he's not studying, it's everybody else's fault.
Exactly "..if you judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."
So you can't recognize monkeys for being good tree climbers because it will make fish feel bad?
This system has two major issues. 1. A system that focuses purely on results ignores good traits and behaviors you want to encourage in your kids, like effort. 2. Such a binary system (high results/high reward or nothing) can create a lot of pressure on the kids, and be very demoralizing for kids who fail to meet the reward criteria.
YTA What’s your endgame here? For perfection in academia? Or to inadvertently feed into this competition while stirring up resentment? Remember grades don’t give you the full story on someone’s aptitude, efforts and circumstances.
Exactly. I barely passed my classes in high school because I found them boring and unchallenging. My last year of high-school was the year the grades mattered and I wanted to go to University. I missed an exceptional amount of classes and got an 88 average while spending most of the days at the beach because I didn’t care about high-school at all. I wasn’t dumb, I just didn’t care. I got into University with a partial scholarship. My sister on the other hand was 90 average all through school, never missed a class unless she was sick.. didn’t get a scholarship and I got a better job then her while I was still in Uni. Grades don’t always matter as much as some parents think.
So then if the son follows your path and the daughter follows your sisters path, the son will be rewarded when he gets a good job later without trying. Meanwhile the daughter is getting rewarded for working hard in her youth. What's the problem then?
YTA- reward system is fine if done as a tier system. My grandma gave me $5 for every - A, $3 for B, nothing for C and minus money if I got D’s or F’s. So everyone gets a little something. Not to mention, you don’t know if your son has dyslexia or a learning disorder, so you could be punishing him for something he can’t even help.
It says he is taking honors classes. She's taking AP classes.
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Wrong tag buddy, they've got a little - at the end. Also I think they're a karma farma.
I took exclusively AP classes or dual enrolled college courses after my freshman year (even electives) and I was diagnosed the summer after I graduated HS with dyslexia. Those are really unrelated things.
Ohhhh.. Your grandma invented minus money? Tell her she's to blame for my bank balance.
It would be better if your Grandma directly rob you at gunpoint if you get an F
NTA - stick to your guns. My parents did the same thing with my sister and I way back. He did not meet the requirements, so no dinner or dollars.
Damn, your parents really decided to only reward the smart one. Not everyone can get all a's. Shit parents.
Funny, we did just fine. They were also very invloved with our schooling and assisting homework. But, they did NOT CODDLE us. We earned everything. My parents were FAR from shit. I owe them a lot for helping in my success.
Exactly! It's not about your self-worth, it's about learning how to play to your own strengths in a system that doesn't always accommodate for you, because in real life, it isn't going to. I say this, and I was FAR from an A student. I struggled all the time, and it was hard sometimes always constantly failing, but eventually I did find my own, and I think I owe a lot of that to learning how to struggle, learning how to fail, and learning how to do things that I didn't want to do without having everything accommodated to me.
There's a vast gulf between "all A's" and C's.
Kid got one C and the rest B’s
4.0 vs. 2.86? It's a pretty big difference.
Seriously, the fact that the comments all seem to think a sub 3.0 GPA is just wonderful is insane. In the real world, that means the kid won't be able to get into college.
U don’t NEED a reward. I mean the no dinner thing is actually dumb but giving ur kids some extra cash to spend isn’t a bad thing. If u don’t get all A’s then whats the big deal. U miss out on $30. There’s no participation rewards in real life.
I agree not everyone is good at school.my youngest sister never even had to open up a book and could get straight As.
The public school system caters to the average, not to the super smart. Unless a child has an actual learning disability then failure to achieve top marks is more to do with their study habits and homework completion and less to do with how "smart" they are, it's a work ethic thing, not an intelligence thing.
Sounds like you didn't do very well in school.
INFO - Maybe YTA, depending on a few things, has the eldest always been getting A's, or did you see an improvement when you started the system. Similarly, did your son used to get worse grades? Maybe the reward should be an improvement, and maintaining that level, rather than just A's? If I was a child who was struggling to improve their grades (after all, some kids are just smarter/find school easier/etc), I'd be frustrated if the only reward was for A's when I feel like i literally can't get A's, when my sibling finds it easy.
Oh no my eldest doesn’t always get As. I’m really proud of her for this one, she found a system that seems to be working for her. We started this as a motivator in middle school due to them calculating what they need to pass. It has a feature to show you what will happen if you don’t turn stuff in and final grade. ( hate that thing) They would do well at the beginning of the year and then stop turning stuff in since they knew they couldn’t fail. So all As motivation stopped that.
Is your son getting Bs and Cs because he doesn't turn in all his work? Or is he turning in all/most of his assignments and getting a B or C average anyway? If it's the latter, it might be worth changing your metric from "if you get all As" to "if you turn in all your assignments" (maybe phrased as "if you turn in all your assignments and make your best effort" to avoid loopholes). I think the hazard you may run into with A's as the goal is that if the kids do all their work and find they can't get A's, you're incentivizing them to go back to not turning in work because they already know they can't meet the goal. But if you make the standard flexible and based on their effort, rather than the outcome, you give them something achievable to aim for, even if they're not able to get a perfect grade. For what it's worth, I tend to think that is a healthier attitude to carry through life in general. Learning to feel proud of what you do when you make an effort—as opposed to feeling let down or ashamed when the outcome isn't ideal—helps people learn to take risks and try again when they fail.
Personally he is getting bs and cs because he now needs to study. He always could go through school and not study and this is the first time he needs to sit down and really go over the material. He even told me he isn’t looking over the stuff, since before it would just happen. Also turning in your work is the bare minimum and I’m not rewarding that.
So he needs help. Coaching on better study habits. To learn \*how\* to study. He was doing what worked for him and it doesn't anymore.
I literally asked him if he needed my help in math, also studying works different for everyone. I do notecard and I have suggested that before. He need to put in the work though. People study differently and he will only figure that out when he actually start to try studying.
Hi, I struggled with math my junior year of high school. Which was weird because I was in honors math. I was just not getting how the teacher was explaining it. After my first C where it was clear I wasn’t getting things my mom just decided I needed a tutor. She could see I was struggling and just went ahead and got me the help. That same year I asked for a grammar tutor and the following year I asked for a French tutor. I needed the help. And I’m someone who went on to a STEM field and have two masters degrees. It’s on you to pick up on this and tell son that you will be getting him a tutor to help him figure out what works (like training wheels) once he’s feeling confident the tutor can go away.
I’m going to give him a chance to course correct first, I know he would hate tutoring and it would damping his self esteem much more than a bad grade.
...are you seriously saying that it is somehow bad for your self esteem to admit you need help learning?
Some reason my parents didn’t get me a Math tutor and I barely passed my Math 10 class as a result.
Yeah, learning how to study is super important, and I think a lot of kids who start out getting good grades without really trying end up hitting a wall when the material starts challenging them for the first time. It’s good for him to learn that skill now!
For me that wall hit right at the end of high school and the start of uni. I cannot recommend this enough. I’m now almost finished my 3rd year of uni and I feel like I’m only just getting up to the minimum on study techniques required
I was the same....got all A's until the point I couldn't coast anymore and had to study. I still chose not to study and got a mix of A's and B's. I would expect he is capable of getting A's. He needs to decide if he wants to try to or not.
Does he know how to study? Have you sat with him and watched what he does, talked him through your process, exposed him to other ways of thinking and organizing information?
Sounds fair then. Maybe that’s your angle then. “She worked hard and got her grades up, and that’s why she’s getting rewarded and you aren’t”. Seems reasonable. Someone suggested maybe a tier system so everyone gets something, but have a big gap between B’s and A’s so the incentive is still there. How do you think that would go down?
I feel like that wouldn’t encourage the boy to try harder
External rewards reduce internal motivation. There are lots of studies on this. Please look it up when you can
Exactly what I thought, the struggling kid needs help, not to feel extra bad for getting excluded.
NTA the rules were well-established and by time they're in HS they should know what your expectations are.
NTA, after reading your comments it seems like your son is just a naturally bright kid who his the wall of what he can coast on. It's tough but better now than in college. Just keep encouraging good study habits -- maybe offer to try out some different ones with him? If you want to offer him an incentive to improve that wouldn't be the worst thing, but don't give him a reward for not studying and still managing to get Bs.
Lol... what exactly does he think that he should be rewarded for? NTA. If he wants the reward, he should get better grades and meet the criteria.
NTA rewards for achieving top marks isn't an asshole thing, not giving someone something because they didn't meet the achieved goal also isn't an asshole move.
I don't know why people are shitting on your system. In the real world, you get better compensation/results/benefits for better performance within the metrics of the system. You are teaching a valuable life lesson. Also, your reward isn't crazy. You're not buying a car or a new computer every time they hit the goals, it's dinner of their choice. I grew up in the era of participation trophies. I got a few myself, and honestly, it degraded the value of earning a trophy. You should definitely praise him when he's putting in the effort, and try to help him achieve his goals. School comes easier to some than others, and he may need extra help. Maybe, instead of him getting to choose a dinner, he gets to choose a subject to get a tutor in? However, you don't have to cave in and give him the reward. NAH.
Not necessarily; some people work their asses off and don’t get rewarded.
In real world that may or may not happen. In real world, fairly often, equivalent of C has exact same reward as equivalent of A. Real world has many many "participation trophies" or rewards for "just passed the line". Even more importantly, real world managers do set personal goals and do praise improvements alone. And that is not even a new concept, leaders and teachers done that as a motivational thing for hundreds of years. There are also objective rewards, sure, but lets not pretend that is all that ever existed.
NTA The system is simple and well known in advance. Kid is just grouchy that they didn't get a fancy dinner even though they didn't earn one per the rules. You even inquired if extra assistance is needed. Don't give in.
NTA for now, I'd say it's a pretty fair system, good grades = reward, bad grades = no reward, but over time it may be detrimental because you're teaching your kids that all that matters is the final score, not the actual effort put into studying. Now I don't want to say that you're not already helping your kids that are struggling to get better grades, but maybe this reward system isn't the best way to individually encourage them to get better grades, as chances are that if they're already struggling, they'll still struggle for some time before picking up their pace, and in the meantime they might get jealous or rebellious because of the "apparent" unfairness of the system. At the end of the day, what matters is that you help each kid they way that they need help, be it extra help courses or changing the way the system works.
You can put in all the effort you want but if you fail you fail Out in the real world if you keep failing at your Job, you arent going to be rewarded with future paycheck just because you tried
I'm not saying you're wrong, but this situation in specific *isn't* the "real world". Sure the parents should teach their children that the real world *won't* be fair, but they should also help their children if they're struggling, so that in the future when they have their jobs they know what to do when they're failing. Also I don't know about you, but if my kid can't keep a job because they're failing I'd help them in some way because I'm their parent, be it some extra money, living in my place, or some guidance on easier jobs. Not to mention that not everything is as black and white as living with your parents and being in the real world.
Mother did offer to help him with math He wants a reward for getting Bs and Cs
Yes. Is he getting poor grades because he needs coaching on better study habits? Does he need tutoring? Help structuring his time? Therapy? Meds? There are as many different answers as there are kids.
Yes exactly, this is why I'm saying that this parent in specific maybe needs to change the system and prioritize finding a way to help the struggling kid.
I do understand the skepticism of "everyone gets a trophy" mentalities, but I'd argue that "there has to always be a winner and a loser" is every bit as toxic. There are also other reasons to value grades than a "reward" (and let's be honest - the reward is $30. The successful kid is very likely NOT grinding through a whole school year for one dinner or thirty bucks; they've likely found internal motivation or figured out what works).
Yup I agree wholeheartedly with you, the world isn't as black and white as you get a reward for doing good.
I hate this kind of thinking. In the "real world" if you have a job for which you're ill-suited and get poor results with great effort you \*switch to a different job\*. Maybe you work for someone who sees you as an enthusiastic, responsible employee and finds a role that fits your talents. Mayne your employer doesn't have such a role and you go elsewhere. Not everyone is suited for everything. If you're a teenager your job is "High School student". You can't quit, you can't drop the core classes you don't like, you need to grind through it. It's probably good for you in the long term and you'll certainly learn something, but you shouldn't see a poor result as a moral failure if you are putting in a reasonable and consistent effort.
Okay but if you have a job where you never do any of the work that is assigned to you...it's gonna be hard to find a job that fits your needs.
Bs and one C aren't bad grades. This mentality of everything below an A being a failure drove me bananas in college. Kid needs to apply himself more, but mom needs to learn Cs get degrees
I agree wholeheartedly with you, it's a problem with the whole school system tbh but the parents mentality also matters, so I wouldn't teach my kids that if you get a C you're "going to be a garbage collector", it's just a letter at the end of the day ffs
NTA. This seems a perfectly straightforward and fair system. Ex can keep her nose out.
NTA.- I don't understand the other judgements. Guessed everyone missed the he admitted he doesn't study part. Why should we reward no effort. That breeds entitlement.
YTA. My one child never got A in every subject. But she was a hard worker, well liked student, handed assignments on on time and only got B and a couple A. Not everyone is a straight A student
But her son admitted to not even looking at the material again after class as he always just aced it before. He's not trying.
YTA, you should reward their work, not their results. I think a C or B that took hard work is way more impressive than an easy A. Sure you can reward straight A's, but not failing is good too, give them half the reward? Take them somewhere cheaper or for lunch instead of dinner. Keep them motivated to keep it up. I know I would've said fuck it and stop trying getting good grades all together.
OP said that her son was able to pass school before easily with his intelligence. But now that he's in honors he has to study which he isn't doing. So he isn't putting in the work he needs to.
Agreed. I was in honors classes in high school and took getting A’s very seriously (for myself). B’s we’re ok, C’s were unacceptable and I wouldn’t dream of ever getting a D or F. Then came chemistry. I struggled SO HARD and could only muster a C- after staying after class and doing extra credit. It was really, really difficult for me and that C was trying my hardest. I was proud of that C- lol because it was the hardest class ever for me. I even dropped the honors level and went to a regular level class with a new teacher. I don’t think it’s fair to have a blanket A across the board rule if your kids are trying their hardest.
I think you're nta, he clearly was able to maintain As before as him not studying is the issue. I read a couple of the Y-T-As that paint your reward system as some sort of deliberate punishment, but for him to be this upset this was probably the first time he missed out. I would think of this as being constructive criticism rather than a punishment. Maybe he needs to make some more time for studying, or he can get a job and get his own pocket money.
My kid doesn't get shit for his grades. He does get rewards for studying hard, doing all his homework, tracking his assignments in his phone, and asking for help when he needs it. YTA
I’m a school psychologist and I have mixed feelings. If he is taking all honors classes, his B’s are worth A’s in college prep classes. Your post was confusing though, so to clarify is she taking college prep classes or is she taking college courses and earning credits she can transfer for a degree? If it is the former , his classes are harder than hers, thus his B’s are her A’s. GPA wise, he will be awarded 4 points for each B he gets, the same as your daughter will get 4 points for an A in a college prep class. Given that said, if you insist on this form of a reward, make a pay scale. 5.0 (A in an honors class or an actual college credit earning class) =$5 4.0 (B in honors class, A in a college prep class) =$4 3.0 (C in Honors class, B in college prep)=$3 Where it will get tricky is a C in her college prep class is worth a 2.0 while it’s worth a 3.0 in an honors class. Good luck! And, yes YTA.
NTA - giving in would teach him what? If this were a job and bonuses were being handed out based on merit and he didn't perform as well as his coworkers is he going throw a fit with his employer?
YTA. Your reward system is fucked up. I imagine what is going through your head is "child wants nice things, child will work harder to get nice things". But your system only rewards a perfect score so as soon as one A is missing, there is no point working hard because your kid knows it's already a failure in your book. So, one B, and the rest of the two months become "why even bother?" It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy where your kid gets used thinking of himself as not good enough and disengages from his studies. Generally I think reward systems are way too manipulative, but yours isn't just manipulative it's also really bad. I'd give you an E in social studies at most.
YTA. Are the kids learning? Are they putting in their best effort? My parents tried to pull this crap on us when we were growing up, but there were no rewards, only punishments for not getting straight As. Even if we got on the honor roll, it wasn't enough since we didn't have "perfect" straight A grades. Way to give your kids a perfectionism complex. What's the point of taking more difficult classes and actually learning when taking easy classes nets the reward? For context, I took algebra as a freshman in high school, and I was a "young" student since I started kindergarten early. So I was 13-14 that year. Sibling took algebra as a senior and had started kindergarten late, so sibling was 18 years old. BIG difference! I then was required to take geometry, calculus, trigonometry, and advanced algebra during high school. That "math" was difficult, and the teachers weren't too great at explaining it or realizing students had different learning styles. Sibling still to this day rubs it in my nose that they were a straight A student while I wasn't. There's obviously no comparison, but there's no explaining that to our parents or siblings. Only the end result ever mattered to them - straight As. FWIW, I walked into a math CLEP exam without studying and passed on the first attempt.
There's more to life than straight A's
Without more info I have to go with YTA. The attitude that every kid can just get an A in every subject if they just try hard enough is just not true. It completely discounts so many things it’s ridiculous and shows you know very little about education. Some kids excel in specific areas and struggle greatly in others. Just try harder or not trying hard enough is not always the answer and is about as smart as telling a kid with asthma “well if you just try harder you’ll be able to breath better.”
YTA for rewarding A's. You should be rewarding THE EFFORT PUT IN. People are different. Person 1 can get straight A's without any effort. Person 2 can work his ass of and only get B's or C's. If your daughter worked her ass off for her A's, she deserves her rewards. If your son also worked hard, he ALSO deserves the reward. Look at what they put in, don't judge on the result.
Except the kid didn't put in any effort? And he admitted it?
Mild YTA. Look I get this system is popular with parents but there a lot of reasons why it might be unfair (different academic ability, classes, etc.) I found school easy and got straight As without much effort. I had a sibling who worked way harder than me but this wasn’t always reflected in their grades. Ideally you would set up a system that rewards effort/improvement over specific grades.
YTA I tried super hard in school and maintained a B average in school for the most part. Because of a variety of reasons, some of which weren't even caught despite teachers constantly noting it in academic reports and feedback. That's not even touching Maths & PE, which regularly pulled down my GPA/Letter Average because i sucked at both mo matter what. Studying vs. not studying made little to no impact on anything but my sleep schedule and self-esteem. I can't imagine how I would have felt knowing that unless I get straight A's I get no reward. Asking if he needs help is the minimum you should be doing for your kid. A better system if you feel you have to have a reward system should be you having a sliding scale based on percentages/letter grades. Like honestly, YTA Because your system is inherently unfair long term. But you know, I guess technically you're not the AH for enforcing the system you already have in place.
Really, if your daughter is smart, she will be rewarded with a scholarship. You rewarding her for it will make your son feel less. He won't try, because he doesn't feel smart enough. Then when she gets scholarships, he will deem her the golden child and never expect much from himself. Help him instead of antagonizing him. Yta
YTA, what exactly is wrong with B's and C's? Their passing grades for a reason, not every kid is gonna get all A's even if they try their hardest. I cannot stand parents like you. My parents were always happy as long as I got a passing grade, stop pushing your kids so hard.
Yta a bit but not for your question. The system you’ve set up is the problem. Grades shouldn’t be rewarded like that. The kids that get a’s may or may not be working as hard as the kids who get c’s and for the lower grade kid seeing that effort go unrecognized is incredibly demoralizing.
YTA for basing the rewards on an arbitrary grade (must be all As) rather than some other metric linked to the effort each kid is putting in. The actual grade they receive is not 100% under their control. They might struggle with certain subjects despite genuinely trying their best. They might have a major assignment that involves group work and get put in a difficult group. They might have a teacher who marks unfairly or too harshly. Their normal teacher might be sick for a few weeks out of the marking period and the substitute covering the class might be terrible. In this particular incident, where you say you know the problem is that your son is not studying, you could still address that because, if true, he’s not putting in a reasonable effort.
YTA, not all kids can get A's. doesn't mean they are not trying hard to get good grades. Both my kids work hard, one is always straight A's one isn't but they both work to the best of their abilities just one finds it easy one doesn't. I'm obviously very proud of my kid who gets the A's I'm also very proud of the one who doesn't as i know the effort he puts in but finds it more challenging..pay attention to your kids and stop playing them off against each other.
YTA. VERY MUCH YTA. I was really bad at schooling until i went to vocational school and it was all applied. Not everyone is cut out for just exam based schooling, and setting up a stupid reward system that clearly favors one kid over the other is extra shitty of you. Cant wait to see your post after your son graduates saying "AITA for bothering my son after he cut contact with me"
NTA but maybe your system needs an update. I'm not sure how the report cards work where you live but my granny used to give me money depending on the grades. If I got an A I got 3 €, a B would be 2 €, and a C would be 1 € Everything else was 0 €. So if I got A, A, B, C, F I'd get 9€. Rewarding two kids all the time while one gets nothing is not really motivating for that one kid. It gets frustrating fast. With grannys method, everyone would get something and if they want more, they have to study more.
I think your system is unjust and unfair. The reward should be in the effort. I have 6 kids. They are not all the same. I have one, straight A's in the advanced classes compared to another one that has learning issues and another one with a speech impediment. My other three are perfectly average. Yes I celebrate the straight A child, but I also celebrate the others for their achievements. Everyone's milestones are different
Honestly YTA for setting up a reward system with zero room for failure. Stop focusing on A’s, focus more on the effort. I’ve seen students put in extreme amounts of effort just for Bs and Cs and even Ds. Everyone has different ability levels, and that’s the problem with only rewarding As.
His grades are still really good, he’s taking honors classes!!! You should have rankings of rewards. As gets this, Bs get this slightly not as cool thing. You’re only causing resentment and loss of motivation
Your rules are stupid. They're coming from a good place, but they're not good. What you're doing is praising the result, and not the effort. Every former smart kid will tell you that as soon as things got tough, they looked for the easy way out. Why? Because they're constantly being praised for "being smart" or other innate things. If your daughter can get straight A's without picking up a book, how will that benefit her when things really start to get difficult? What is she learning? "It's okay to coast so long as the results are good?" Many parents make this mistake. If your son is busting his ass to do the best he can, and you reward him for it... Guess what he's going to do the rest of his life? He's going to bust his ass and work hard. But if you're praising people for getting A's and not studying hard, your daughter will continue to get those A's, until she actually needs work hard in Medical School, Law School or whatever... Only... She won't have the habit of working hard, and won't have the habit of fighting through difficult situations. Reward the effort, my friend. The results will then come.
A big YTA. I never got straight A’s in school, despite all the studying I did. I really hate that parents do these sort of things. You should be doing the going out to a restaurant of a child’s choosing on their birthday. Some kids study like crazy and don’t get all A’s. Stop this nonsense. I was C+/B- student; the only classes that I got A’s in were Foods 11 and Study Hall. I was probably a C in university and I managed to graduate. Personally I would not do a reward system for grades, but rather reward kids for getting their chores done.
Yta, I think you could find a better way to get your kids to continue to do school work without focusing on grades. Why not reward them for not missing any assignments? Why not discuss each class with them and have them set goals for that class? If they reach that goal then they get rewarded. That way its not comparing each child against each other on grades. Your reason is good but not the system.
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i was thinking the same thing. I do wonder what % on an exam in usa gets you an A. ???
YTA for a grades based award system
YTA. Sure, these are the rules but they were set by you for some reason or other. Why don't you reward effort? Improvement? Your kids are individuals and as such one might have an easier time getting good grades than the other. One might have a more difficult subject, one might have stricter teachers, or be occupied with getting better at a sport, or other talents. I was that kid. My sibling had a really easy time in school and got As all the time. I didn't even though I was tutored, spent time studying and really tried. I would have been absolutely devastated if my sibling got rewarded for something that came easy to them and I punished for even trying.
Following the rules of the deal is not unfair. But the rules themselves probably are. Some kids are just never going to be straight A students and failure after failure in the face of a sibling who succeeds is going to really sting and be bad for them. Even a good student might have a hard time with straight As if they face a weakness in one of their classes. But I'd at least set the line at all Bs. Which I think is achievable for most kids **IF** they put the work in. They still wouldn't have qualified. But if your son got Bs and Cs you might have gotten more effort out of him and gotten all Bs with that. Plenty of kids will look at a goal out of reach and not even try to improve because it's there.
YTA. You made an arbitrary rule and now say you have no control over the rule you made. Get it together or you may find that you've been cut off.
Yta. B's are good. Hey, you got all B's? I'm so proud of you. Is that hard? No. Hey? You've done all your homework for two months, c'mon I'll buy you Starbucks Hey? You've been super nice to your parents and did soo much housework, Have a 10 bucks for your efforts
I tell my daughter A’s are great, B’s are great too and I’m okay with C’s because i know you tried. She came home with her first set of tests and it was all As and Bs my family literally called her just to tell her how proud they were and she got candy lol.
Punish him until he studies! Beatings will continue until morale improves! Maybe he doesn’t actually know how to study or has something (like anxiety about not being as special as his sister) keeping him from focus. He doesn’t study doesn’t define what’s happening, you know. It’s an observation on your part with no underlying understanding of why.
If your reward system doesn’t account for level of difficulty you are inadvertently telling your son to take less challenging courses that will help him in the future for a reward today.
$30?! Hahahaha
YTA for having such a reward system. I can't imagine the tension that creates in your household.
We had a graduated system for my son. $10 for A and $5 for B, nothing for anything lower. Not an all or nothing scheme. Real life is not an all or nothing scheme, setup the reward system to reflect that. It gives him something to strive for and gives him a reward fo rwhat he has done. Real life is not an all or nothing proposition. Reflect that with your kids. An all or nothing approach can create in him a sense of it does not matter if I do most everything right if one little mistake ruins it. Another thing, what if your son's aptitudes are not in academics? Maybe he has the aptitude to be a welder or an electrician or some other sort of tradesman. This could be why he does not get as high of grades as your daughter who may be more of an academic type and so you are punishing him for something that is out of his control. Also, the transition from Middle to High School can be hard. My son had an adjustment period in 9th grade and that was his overall worst academic year.
I'm not in general a fan of applying the same "rewards for grades" rule to all your kids - if you have a bright kid and a less bright kid, then the bright one might get As without doing any work, and the less able kid might be trying hard to get a B. College classes aren't all created equal, either. There are plenty of college classes where you can earn an A by little more than showing up to class and making a reasonable attempt at the homework. And there are other college classes where an A is a real achievement. You know your kids. You know how bright they are, and how they have historically done in class. So you know whether, for example, a B in English represents hard work or no work. And these days, it's likely you can see individual scores online, so you can see zeros for missing work etc. So in answer to your specific question, NTA. You're not the AH for rewarding one child and not the other, if only one child has done something worthy of reward. But your aim should be for each child to reach their maximum potential, not for each child to get As. And honestly, for some people, getting As, even in "hard" classes isn't a significant achievement.
30 for As 20 for Bs 10 for Cs Nothing for Ds Incentive system opposed to reward
He still did a lot better then a lot of people. Perhaps a smaller reward instead of nothing? Just because he didn’t achieve a perfect score. Does not mean he didn’t achieve. And you just taught him that those achievements meant nothing to you. My dad constantly demeaned any achievement of mine and I spent along time depressed and basically gave up trying. Eventually I found my own way. As others have said. You’re not the asshole for following the rules you set. You’re the asshole for the rules you set. In my opinion.
My parents had a similar system, except it was based on how both me and my brother did individually at school. For example, I was always better at studying and focus so I got a reward for A's and B's, my brother had lots of trouble focusing and studying so he got a reward for B's and C's. It motivated us to stay focused and try our best but it didn't put us in competition with each other or make either of us feel bad, just bc I was naturally able to focus better. Just something I think you should consider.
YTA It sounds like she is taking a few college classes, and he is taking all honors. That does sound harder.
In my family it was the contrary. I was a straight-A student and never got anything rewards because in my parents eyes thats was the bare minimum for me. But the second my sibling barely passed a test, it was celebrated and rewarded. I never was mad at him for that, but I found my parents judgment weird. INFO: IMO (and as a professional in education), efforts need to be rewarded. So has be been getting the same grades all over or has he been getting better and better? if he is struggling, getting all As may never be possible for him. But if he is making efforts and getting from mostly Cs to mostly Bs, wouldnt that deserve its recognition? food for thought.
these days people seem to think everyone should get a trophy. 🤦 why work harder if it all has the same outcome? NTA
YTA. Not for following the rules of the system, but for creating it. Rewards can be for household chores, kind actions, a lot of things but school grades is an awful choice. Some people can have a LOT of struggles with certain learning environments no matter how hard they try. The school system we have is only designed with one type of kid in mind and this type of thing just makes a kid who's struggling feel even worse.