Put them into a workhouse for a couple of years, until they’re motivated to leave?
No—bad example.
Try reasoning with them. Explain the benefits of hard work and the potential pitfalls of laziness in terms they can understand for their age. If it becomes clear they won’t or can’t meet the cognitive demands of traditional schoolwork, maybe they’re better with their hands—steer them toward trade school. They may be happier and excel there. In any case, a monetary reward isn’t likely to help.
This is why I’m on the “paying is OK” side of the argument. Every kid is different, I think our system of grading is overly competitive, and want my kid to succeed in that competition even if his natural state is to spend more time gaming.
I’m not saying that rewarding students with cash is the magic cure for all students but I’ve seen a number of kids who respond well to various forms of rewards.
One of the difficulties parents and teachers faces is when the children are different than the parent or teacher in motivation.
I was really interested in math, for example and always did well. My son isn’t. But that doesn’t mean he has to be “steered into trade school”.
My answer would be no. The grade is the attaboy itself.
That grades are a very limited and delayed proxy for what I as the parent wanted to see achieved: the consistent effort and development of good study habits. One of my kids might be able to an A in math without trying; another has to consistently work hard to get a B. I am more interested in reinforcing the second’s consistent hard work. I am in better position than the teacher is to see and reinforce the work habits at home in real time.
Questions for you as a teacher:
Do you give your reinforcers (grades and other praise) to Middle Schoolers once a grading period? Or do you use performance on assignments, quizzes, and by way of how well they participate in class discussions on a more frequent basis to hopefully reward their consistent effort? Likely the latter. Why?
As far as what reinforcer to use, I’d be more direct than money which is a token for something they can get later. If necessary a signed negotiated contract: child gets X amount of video games time, tablet access, set of something they collect, or whatever, that they previously just got, in return for tangible demonstration of their putting in the study time. No less frequently than weekly.
You made a coach analogy. No coach would reward a player who only shows for the game even if they play well during the game. Blow off daily practices and you get benched. Nor do they only praise the star player. We want each player to be their best.
We do this with my kid and he’s five. He has fine motor issues (well, he did – he’s officially average now!) He writes a letter to someone he knows (tracing on paper), he gets TV time. That’s kind of how we get him through the day. Some work followed by a reward. Now he is fortunately highly motivated to learn on his own, as I was. I’m not particularly worried about his academics. But the basic work + reward thing is foundational to a lot of parenting styles. Reward is the number one most effective way to change behavior. Consistent reward at first, but eventually intermittent reward – nothing is more powerful than intermittent reward, hence social media.
Now grades were hella motivating/rewarding for me as a child, but they are not going to be rewarding and motivating to all people, and you know what, money won’t be rewarding to all people either, so it’s really about keying into what that particular person finds rewarding, and exploiting it. I truly have zero qualms about exploiting my kid’s reward mechanism. 18 months ago he had significant developmental delays across multiple domains. Using the power of reward, he has learned things he otherwise wouldn’t have, including how to brush his own teeth, how to use the toilet, how to write, and a host of other things he could not have learned without extra motivation. Keeping in mind also that if he has ADHD as I suspect, he’s got dopamine issues interfering with his ability to find completing tasks intrinsically rewarding. This explains to me how early on in his life, he would give up the second things got difficult. I have spent a lot of time instructing him on the fact that the more you do something, the easier it gets, and it seems to be sinking in for him, because he is now more willing to do hard things.
I guess what I’m saying is there is no one-size-fits-all approach here. Whether it’s a good idea or not depends on what is motivating that kid.
Following up here. We just had a parent teacher conference. BIG improvement. We haven’t done the formal calculations yet, but kiddo has earned a significant payday.
He had told his teacher about the payment plan. I didn’t get the impression she ever brought it up as motivation, but little.gnu would mention it when they discussed Evaluation scores.
He was feeling the pressure to improve his reading and writing after his test for the “Highly Capable” program came within inches from acceptance. I think the money carrot was a good counterbalance.