The Reward System Works

I’ve always believed in the reward system. Call it the capitalist in me but why would you want to do anything without getting some form of remuneration at the end of a successful job. Right?

Even kids are prey to this system. Although in their case, not all jobs are rewarded. Say for instance cleaning up. You don’t say, “Pack away your toys and we’ll go for ice cream once you’re done.” all the time. But saying this definitely gets them in a hurry-up-and-pack-away-mood.

Same goes for studying. Even if its a given that they should study hard with an exceptional report card as the reward, most kids would rather get something more substantial. Nowadays that would be more in the line of a netbook, a game console, or even a blackberry. Yep, times are a’changin folks. The latest issue of Archie’s just doesn’t cut it anymore.

So with this in mind, we have decided to use the reward system on our kids to put a little more drive in their pursuit of excellence. I mean, my kids aren’t exactly dumb. In fact, they’re doing pretty good in school. But just like all of the rest of you parents, we silently (and some not so silently) hope that they do even better. We want them to take home the plum….the bacon….the elusive honor card….the gold medal.

We want that too. Not rabidly, but we do. The kids do too. We’ve seen the look on their faces when they come home with less than stellar quiz scores. We’ve seen that disappointed smirk when one classmate gets to have her name written on the board for topping the “bee’s”. And we’ve also seen the look of pride when they get perfect on their exams. They’re driven…yes…but sometimes…no.

So we’ve put a golden pot at the end of the school rainbow. And that pot can contain anything that they’re little hearts can think of. Well, all within a certain budget of course. It seems to be working because the day after the announcement, they both came home with perfect quiz scores.