“Real Pay” for Grades

One of our daughters had one of those friends that you wish would move to Wisconsin or somewhere else far away. This little eighth grade buddy of our daughter Sally was always saying things we wished she wouldn’t hear, giving her ideas we wished she hadn’t thought of and bragging about things she could do that we didn’t allow our daughter to do.

One day she told Sally that she got $100. for every A on her report card, and Sally, of course, brought it to our immediate and urgent attention.

We had always had a thing against paying for grades. It was not a part of our family economy, and it seemed like such an artificial motivation and a bad substitute for an understanding of the lifetime “real value” of education.

But it sounded pretty good to Sally!

We thought about it for a couple of days and sort of blundered on to an answer that actually worked beyond our expectations.

I started looking up studies I had heard about regarding education-based variables in people’s earning potential and found that in that particular year, the median annual income (in round numbers) for people without a high school degree was $25,000, for those with a high school degree it was 35,000, for those with a college degree it was 56,000, and for those with a professional graduate degree it was over 100,000.

I shared these numbers with Sally, and we talked about the connections between grades and getting into colleges, getting into really good colleges, and going to graduate school. She must have done a little thinking about it, because I from the back seat of the car pool a few days later, I heard this conversation:

Sally: How much is it that you get for every A?

Friend: $100.00. How much do you get?

Sally: Well, I actually get like $75,000.00 every year for the rest of my life if I get mostly A’s

Her explanation of that to her friend was not very complete, and I’m not sure the friend got it. But the point is that Sally got it, and her motivation for working for good grades was based on real numbers from the real world rather than on some form of parental bribery.

And it was also kind of fun to hear her little know-it-all friend become fairly speechless for once in her life.


One of our daughters had one of those friends that you wish would move to Wisconsin or somewhere else far away. This little eighth grade buddy of our daughter Sally was always saying things we wished she wouldn’t hear, giving her ideas we wished she hadn’t thought of and bragging about things she could do that we didn’t allow our daughter to do.

One day she told Sally that she got $100. for every A on her report card, and Sally, of course, brought it to our immediate and urgent attention.

We had always had a thing against paying for grades. It was not a part of our family economy, and it seemed like such an artificial motivation and a bad substitute for an understanding of the lifetime “real value” of education.

But it sounded pretty good to Sally!

We thought about it for a couple of days and sort of blundered on to an answer that actually worked beyond our expectations.

I started looking up studies I had heard about regarding education-based variables in people’s earning potential and found that in that particular year, the median annual income (in round numbers) for people without a high school degree was $25,000, for those with a high school degree it was 35,000, for those with a college degree it was 56,000, and for those with a professional graduate degree it was over 100,000.

I shared these numbers with Sally, and we talked about the connections between grades and getting into colleges, getting into really good colleges, and going to graduate school. She must have done a little thinking about it, because I from the back seat of the car pool a few days later, I heard this conversation:

Sally: How much is it that you get for every A?

Friend: $100.00. How much do you get?

Sally: Well, I actually get like $75,000.00 every year for the rest of my life if I get mostly A’s

Her explanation of that to her friend was not very complete, and I’m not sure the friend got it. But the point is that Sally got it, and her motivation for working for good grades was based on real numbers from the real world rather than on some form of parental bribery.

And it was also kind of fun to hear her little know-it-all friend become fairly speechless for once in her life.

“How can I protect my kids?”

Instilling a sense of ownership in our children with regard to their physical bodies may be the best answer to one of the most common of all parental questions, “How can I protect my kids?”

This is an area where “learning by trial and error and by personal experience” is the worst of all possible methods. We must try to tie ownership of the body directly to ownership of values, choices and goals and to find “vicarious” methods of examples, case studies and talking things through in advance that will give children the strong desire to care for and protect their own bodies.

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The real key to giving children a positive, happy sense of ownership of their own body is to focus on the wonder and beauty of the physical and to make the body the subject of respect and awe. This works so much better than negative, fear-based approaches.

A good analogy that many parents have used successfully with their children is that of a horse and a bridle. Simple discussions with fairly young kids can build around questions like this:

How much do you weigh son?

Do you know how much a horse weighs?

About 10 times as much as you! And how strong do you think horses are?

Then let me ask you this. How can people ride horses and make them do what the rider wants?

A bridle is an interesting thing. It has a bit that goes between the horses teeth, and you can make them turn or stop or do what you want with just a gentle pull on the reigns. Isn’t that cool?

Now here’s the thing: Our appetites are kind of like horses. What are some of our appetites? For what?

Are these appetites pretty strong?

So just like with the horse, what might we need?

What could be a “bridle” for our appetite for food? What could be a “bridle” for our appetite to just sleep all day? What could be a bridle for our appetite to try drugs? What could be a bridle for our appetite to try sex while we are still too young?

If you are intrigued by this “bridling” metaphor, a whole book is available on it, written by someone with the pseudonym of “Dr. Bridell” which you can find on Amazon.


The Car Analogy

For many kids, an interest in cars starts early, and peaks as it gets close to the time when they can drive. So car analogies often work.

What determines how long a car will last?

What do we have to put into a car?

How do impurities affect it?

What can ruin the paint?

How do we fix it?

The analogies are endless.