Regarding paying for grades, I am torn. Of course paying smart kids for good grades is not a good idea, after all, they find getting good grades easy. But what about the marginal kid who has to study harder to get good grades? Paco’s response of “Why pay them for doing well in school. They’re supposed to get good grades.” does not follow, were not talking about paying a kid not to get F’s. Anything more than a C would be directly correlated with effort, and trade offs. Why should I study harder instead of say, hang out more with my friends? Play video games? Chat with my girlfriend? Etc. Time is valuable and if you want to reallocate my time, it makes sense that you adjust priorities accordingly. Its what we do in the economy all the time, whether were talking about our mechanics, babysitters, teachers, or doctors – the more time and attention you want them to spend on a certain task, the more you pay them.

On the other hand, you are supposed to teach a kid a love for education in and of itself and paying a kid to study can, in the long run, take away from that. But again, this depends. The easier school is for you, the more you will naturally love it. But not everybody is smart, there are marginal kids and those kids will not so easily develop a love for education – just as I would not so easily develop a love for playing basketball, as much as say, my 7 foot neighbor. Where to strike that balance? I guess its up to the parents who know their kids best, but whatever the decision, it seems clear to me that the lower you go in IQ, the more paying kids for grades makes sense (but for it to work, its more than a simple $20/A, the pay has to be proportional to the valued effort it takes to get those grades – for example, if a kid is really in love with his girlfriend, and wants to spend every minute with her, you are going to have to pay him a whole lot more than $20/A to get any real change in his grades…but this is another topic for another post).

Btw, love your new layout and I see that your dad missed your brothers game. Tisk, tisk, tisk, what kind of father misses his sons sports games?

I never cared after a while, and now I know my dad was doing a good thing by distancing that feeling of entitlement from me. Unfortunately, the trend didn’t stick. My 16-year-old nephew (my Brother’s oldest) is on fire. He’s been nominated to attend the National Young Leader’s Conference in D.C. this year, he’s going to Paris in June with 10 other honor’s students, he has an iPhone (I couldn’t get a beeper at 16!) and he has a 3.9 gpa throughout two years of high school. My dad’s perspective? The kid gets paid $10 an A. Damn the times have changed.

Interesting you mention them “paying you for grades” by paying for your activities, etc. I tell my siblings who still live at home and are in college or have jobs that the price they pay to live at home are their chores and the relatively few things my parents ask of them. I don’t want to hear their complaining about the dishes if they’re not even paying rent!